Shooting Technique – Part 1 (mshafik)

Self Portrait - Canon 60D, 35mm f/2, 580EX II

I never posted about my shooting or processing techniques, but according to our reader comments, this is a requested post, so here it is, this will be part 1, my own shooting technique, as a Canon user. Now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense to write about this topic, which is one of my favorite reading material, along with post processing and "what's in my camera bag?" posts.

Here's how this will go, in this first part, I will talk about the general camera settings I use, next, I will describe some different shooting scenarios (the most usual ones I face) with examples, and tell you how I handle them.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional photographer, i.e. I don't earn money from photography, not even this blog, I learn and buy photography equipment to take great photos of my growing up girls, and because I like it as a hobby. You could call me an advanced amateur/hobbyist.

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GENERAL CAMERA SETTINGS

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This will be described from a Canon DSLR point of view, Nikons or other brands for that matter, might have the same settings under different names, consult your user manual or ask in the comments and we'll do our best to answer.

These are my typical camera settings for 95% of the time, and the first things I setup when I get my hands on a new camera:

Back Button Focusing: check my detailed explanation here, but to make it short I don't want the camera to focus every time I press the shutter button. I usually use the middle (*) button for focusing, the AF-ON button is quite far away, and I set it for AE Lock instead.

Select AF Point Directly: because I don't focus and recompose, I change the AF point I am using all the time, I love to move the joystick (or press the 8-direction pad, for you 60D users) directly to change my AF point, without pressing any other buttons first. It is much more versatile this way, and a press in the middle chooses the center AF point directly.

Single Point AF: I don't focus and recompose ever, except in very rare shooting situations, with the shallow DoF of fast lenses and now full frame sensors, I never got pixel-level sharp results with focus and recompose. I always put one of the focus points on the near eye of my subject, and if required I crop the picture in post to get the desired composition. My 60D had 9 cross type AF points, so shooting like that was always accurate, the 5D Mark II however had crappy outer AF points, but I patiently used them anyway, and now with the 5D Mark III, I live in a 41 cross type AF points all over the frame, splendid!

AI Servo: this setting, in conjunction with back button focusing, is an excellent way to shoot kids. I select the required focus point, and hold the back button to focus, if my subject is stationary, it will act as one shot AF, maybe even more accurate, however if my subject is moving (which my kids always do), the focus point will track them, and that way I never change focus settings. The Mark III however seems to change all my focusing habits, I will report about that in my review, one thing I just discovered while writing this article, low light focusing, the 5D Mark III can focus down to -2 EV, so I tried to focus in very low light (ISO 6400, f/1.4, 1/15 sec) and it failed to focus although I could see through the finder, it just kept hunting, however I thought to try focusing using one shot AF and to my surprise it locked focus easily, weird, maybe I will be using AI Focus in the future (switches automatically between One Shot AF and AI Servo if the subject moves), we'll see how it turns out.

Hi-Speed Continuous Drive: since I am usually tracking moving subjects, I want the camera to be ready anytime for fast shooting, I don't understand the slow speed continuous drive, I can control that with my shutter finger. I don't want to miss a shot because I have to fiddle with some setting. Again, the 5D Mark III is changing my behavior, the silent mode is really silent, and I love being discrete, so I am using it at high speed, which in my case is 3 fps.

Evaluative Metering: I used to shoot center-weighted metering full time with my G11, 550D and 60D, I got the most consistent (not accurate) results that way, but it required lots of use of exposure compensation. However, I learned by chance that when using the evaluative metering on Canon DSLRs, it will give more metering weight to the selected AF point, I never knew that before, so when I tried it on the 5D Mark II, I found I could get more accurate results most of the time, and it certainly solved the always needed exposure compensation issue for me.

Aperture Priority Mode: I shoot in this mode 90% of the time, I select the suitable aperture for the required depth of field.

Manual ISO: rarely do I use Auto ISO, I select my own aperture, half press the shutter to see the resulting shutter speed, and adjust ISO as necessary, I use the lowest ISO possible most of the time. After a few years of shooting experience, I can now tell in certain lighting what will the shutter speed be based on a certain aperture and ISO.


RAW: I shoot RAW because I can tweak my white balance and carefully control the sharpness and details that I want, check this article for more details.

Auto White Balance: since I got the 60D, I have been an auto WB user, the camera nails it 90% of the time, it is really good except under tungsten lighting where I need my WB to be 2500k, and since I am shooting RAW anyway, I can tweak the WB in post.

Beep Off: I hate it, and it draws too much attention (event photographers, take note), if I'm using one shot AF, I can see the green dot in the viewfinder confirming focus.

LCD Image Review - Off: I don't like the camera to display every picture after I take it on the back LCD, and when shooting in the dark and the LCD turns on brightly, it dazzles your eyes. Some times I set it to 2 seconds when I want to have a quick look at the image or the histogram after I take the picture.

LCD Preview - Histogram: I don't judge the picture by how it looks on the back LCD, but rather use the histogram to determine if I'm correct or I need to adjust something.

LCD Preview - Blinkies: I also set the blinkies on, if you have blown out highlights they blink in the preview image, this way you can quickly determine if the blown out highlights are in an important part of the picture.

One Touch 100% Zoom: I didn't have this option before until I got the 5D Mark III, one press on the zoom button goes all the way to 100% magnification on the selected focus point so that I could judge the focus.

Custom Settings (C1, C2 & C3): I use one of these modes to store the following settings so that when I give my camera to someone else, they can get good pictures, I set the "focus on" to the shutter button, auto ISO, all AF points active, single shot drive, aperture priority and f/8. It works.

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SHOOTING SCENARIOS

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Before I delve into the examples, here's one more personal preference of mine, I shoot available light portraits 90% of the time, I find that carrying lighting equipment is a hassle, and I usually prefer to go out of the house with the camera and just one prime lens, The only zoom lens I currently have is the 24-105 L, and I only take it when I know I'll need a wide angle.

Available Light Portrait, 60D & 35mm f/2

Here's my first example, I used the upper middle focus point to focus on his right eye (left eye in the picture), and snapped away. I don't give any importance to the background blowing out in that case, as long as my subject is correctly exposed, let the background go to highlight hell, it's out of focus anyway.

Cute Girl, Canon 60D & 85 f/1.8

Another available light portrait, when shooting in direct sunlight, I try to keep my subjects standing in open shade, like this one, one thing to take care of, is to make sure the left part lit with the sun is not severely over-exposed, with experience, you'd be able to tell how much your camera will be able to recover. Focus was on one of her eyes.

Hair Spray, Canon 60D & 85 f/1.8

Here I did the same as above, but I knew I'd have to push the shadows open because of the high contrast, it works, I stopped down a bit for more depth of field, and chose a high ISO (400?) despite the strong light to get a high enough shutter speed to freeze the water droplets.

One thing I learned from shooting on a beach with the sea as a background, when shooting on aperture priority and evaluative metering, I usually increase the exposure compensation by 1.7 ~ 2 stops.

Happy Strawberry, Canon 5D Mark III & 100 Macro L

Same as the first picture, focus on the near eye, and the evaluative metering did the rest, that macro has some nice bokeh.

Contemplation, Canon 60D & 85mm f/1.8

Same scenario, but lighting is from an open window, I love it's softness and gradual transition from highlights to shadows.

Bad metering, Canon 60D & 85mm f/1.8

Solved with a Canon flash in the Lumiquest SBIII

Now we move to artificial lighting, as you can from the first picture, the camera's meter was fooled by the bright background, and our subject was living in shadows. In the second picture, I left my camera in aperture priority mode, and used my Canon 580EX (HSS active) with a Lumiquest SBIII to the camera left and fired away, the camera and the flash figured out the correct amount of light required using E-TTL. The speedlite was triggered by the camera's popup flash.

The picture doesn't quite scream "lighting", but rather a subtle effect, unlike the next one.

Obvious Lighting, Canon 60D & 35mm f/2

Here I wanted to express the lighting effect more, my friends did like it and their comment was "looks like it was shot in a studio", my camera was still on aperture priority mode with the same flash and Lumiquest softbox, but this time I dialed in a -1 exposure compensation, this, in Canon cameras, reduces the ambient exposure by one stop, and the flash did the rest of the lifting. What I really like here, is how soft the SBIII lighting is in relation to its small-ish size.

Old Man, Canon 60D & 35mm f/2

Now we move indoors, my favorite and most used technique is Neil VN's on-camera bounce flash technique, it is very simple, quick and effective. In these situations I use manual exposure mode, I set my desired aperture (for depth of field control) and shutter speed (less than or equal sync speed, depending on subject motion and ambient light level), then set any ISO and take a test shot without flash.

I usually try to keep the ambient 1 or 1.5 stops under exposed, this way it is still registering enough lighting, but not enough to decide the color temperature or the lighting position, then I turn on my flash on E-TTL and bounce it to the required direction (usually to my right or left, and behind my back), your new light source is the patch of light where your flash is hitting. set the white balance the same as the flash since this will be the dominant light in the final picture, if the flash power is not enough, I will increase the ISO or open the aperture a little.

If you look again at the picture, it is not that apparent I was using a flash, the secret is not to underexpose the ambient by much, and to bounce in an area reasonably far away from your subject, that it won't be totally obvious.

Would you imagine this was lit with flash? Canon 60D & 85mm f/1.8

Here I used the exact same technique, but underexposed the ambient very little, less than one stop, the flash is acting as a fill light.

Mr. Zizo, Canon 5D Mark II & 50mm f/1.4

Same as above, the flash was bounced from a far away ceiling. By keeping the ambient levels apparent, you make the picture more natural looking.

Smile! Canon 60D & 85mm f/1.8

The final bounce flash picture, same as above, but more obvious since the ambient was very low, and 80% of the lighting is bounce flash.

Jet Ski, Canon 5D Mark III & 200mm f/2.8 L

This final picture has no flash, but what's different is that I used manual exposure mode, which makes perfect sense in this scenario, the jet skis were moving fast and in different positions regarding the sun, and I wanted to get consistent exposures, so I switched to manual mode, adjusted the settings so that I got my histogram barely touching the right side, and then I blasted away at 6 fps. :-)

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Well, that marks the end of part one, in part two Michael will tell us about his own shooting technique from a Nikon user point of view. I hope you've enjoyed this post as much as I did writing it, and I'd love to see any questions, suggestions, requests in the comments. Shoot away.

BTW, what do you think of the new layout, with the airy theme, larger pictures (no need for clicking anymore) and all?


RELATED POSTS

Canon 60D Review

Canon 35mm f/2 Review
Canon 85mm f/1.8 Review
Canon Speedlites Review
TTL Flash Tutorial
RAW vs JPEG
Back Button Focusing

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The Full-Frame, Large Sensor Bonanza!!!

Credit: photokina.com

 
THE YEAR 2012
 
This year's Photokina exhibition certainly was different, a few months ago, both Canon and Nikon each announced two new high-end full-frame DSLRs (Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 1DX, Nikon D800, Nikon D4), then just before the end of the year each of them announced a more affordable (not really) full-frame DSLR again (Canon 6D, Nikon D600). And to make matters more exciting, Sony announced the revolutionary A99 full-frame DSLR, and the sweet, expensive RX1. A full-frame Leica completes the picture. Do you see a trend here?
 

On the other hand, the mirror-less world has never been more exciting, earlier this year, we had the Canon G1X, the Sony RX100, the Sony NEX-5n, the Fuji X-Pro and the Olympus OM-D. However, the Photokina announcements gave us a huge dump of larger-than-average-sensor compacts and mirrorless, most notable the new Olympus XZ-2, E-PL5 and E-PM2, the Fuji XE-1 & XF-1, the Panasonic GH3, and the Sony NEX-6.
 
You can read a quick summary about most of these cameras on Roger Cicala's blog.
 
 
WHAT DO I THINK?
 
You might know I already have a lovely Canon 5D Mk II, whereas before I had a couple of APS-C Canons and a larger-than-average-sensor Canon G11. I love full-frame sensors, I get better image quality, sharper images, more exposure latitude and lower noise than I ever got with any of my previous cameras, amazing, but there's a huge caveat, shallow depth of field!
 

Too shallow a DoF? Miss focus from my 5D2 ruined the shot, I would have loved to have both eyes in focus, and that's @ f/2.8, two stops down from wide open!!

 
 
I know, you will tell me that we all seek the shallow DoF, and that I am lucky to have a full-frame camera, ok, it's sometimes useful to have that shallow DoF, just not all the time, it is now more difficult to shoot large groups, macro objects, and generally lots of stuff where you need more DoF. I can, of course, stop down and increase the DoF, but that way I will suffer from lower shutter speeds and higher ISOs.
 
I was jealous - and still am - of those Olympus m4/3 users, they can use the excellent Olympus/Panasonic sharp lenses wide-open and still get sharp shots with just enough DoF, and the correct amount of background blur. I know the same can be done with APS-C, I was more comfortable shooting wide-open with my APS-C cameras, but I am seriously intrigued with the small sizes of Olympus m4/3 bodies and lenses, and I love the concept of the EVF, maybe Kirk is an evil-genius writer, but he succeeded in making me like them without ever trying them, the whole WYSIWYG concept (exposure, white balance, real-time information, histograms, etc...) without lifting your eye from the view finder is intriguing, and that's probably an under-estimation.
 
M4/3 cameras keep getting excellent lenses all the time, did you see that luscious 60mm Macro? I would buy one because of the looks alone, did you see how sharp the new 75mm f1/.8 lens is? Did you see the crazy 24-70mm f/2.8 & 70-200mm f/2.8 35mm equivalent lenses from Panasonic? They mean serious business. And now one can't complain about the focusing speed or accuracy anymore (except for tracking moving subjects, in which DSLRs are still king). I have been contemplating getting a m4/3 system for a long time, and I am sure the time will come sometime within a couple of years, however, I would rather have a full-frame camera for the following reasons:

• Image Quality: despite achieving quantum leaps in image quality (OM-D sensor), they can now match the larger APS-C sensors, but they are no match for their larger brothers yet.
• Egyptian Market: zero presence for such cameras or lenses, only Canon & Nikon DSLRs, no Olympuses, Sonys, Fujis or Panasonics. If I buy a system from abroad, I would never be able to sell it.
• Flashes: I shoot a lot with flash, sometimes I am a hard-core strobist, and most of the time, I'm a Neil Van Niekerk bouncer, I am not sure that those systems have the same flash hardware, capabilities and prices as the trusted Canon & Nikon speedlites.

So it remains full-frame for me until we get better, smaller sensors. I have a 5D Mark II, which is an excellent camera, image quality wise. However, I was worried before I bought it from the so-so focusing system, I am not a focus-recompose person, and I love to put a focus point directly where I want my focus to be, despite the 60D having only 9 points, they were 9 great points, all of them were cross type (i.e. more accurate), however with the 5D Mark II, you only get an accurate center point, and the outer points are either horizontal or vertical points, they miss a lot and they completely suck in tracking my kids, even if they are just moving their heads when I am composing. Which brings us to the next part.
 

5D Mark II + 100 Macro L, f/11, Canon 580EX II

 
 
DARN YOU CANON, DARN YOU NIKON
 
Before I bought the 5D2, I waited for Canon's imminent full-frame announcement to see if I would buy that instead, they announced the 5D3 which was way out of my budget, so I only had the option to buy the 5D2, end of story.
 
When I heard about Canon's rumored "affordable" full-frame, I was really excited, it would be the same price as the 5D2 (sell mine, buy new, no loss), and would certainly have more features like a pop-up commander flash, swivel screen, and more importantly, a much better focusing system, rumors mentioned the 7D's great focusing system, I was very happy and excited, until Nikon announced the D600.
 
I am quite impressed with the D600, I see it as an excellent move by Nikon, and I assume it will sell like hot cakes, Mic has received his, and it seems very nice. Am I jealous? Mmmaybe. Do I want one? Certainly. Will I buy one? Unfortunately not, the cost of replacing all of my lenses and flashes with Nikon ones will be huge, and I will lose a lot of money selling my own stuff, so I have to stay still for now, maybe one day I will only have one camera and one lens, switching would be much easier then, I would even buy the Sony A99, drool. Darn you Nikon for producing such a nice teasing camera.
 
Now the Canon, after the D600 announcement, I saw an entry on canonrumors.com that stated the 6D would have 11 AF points, my heart sank at that moment, my only hope in the new full-frame was broken to pieces, and true, the 6D in my opinion is a fail on several levels, but I don't doubt it will sell well amongst hard-core Canonistas, and at some time in the future completely replace the 5D Mark II. Here's what I like/hate about both the Canon 6D and the Nikon D600, and take care that both cameras sell for the same price, so the comparison is relative:
 
Canon 6D - Me Likey:
 

• Full-frame sensor, will probably have excellent image quality, can't imagine it will be better than the 5D3 however.
• Built-in WiFi & GPS, genius, the Wi-Fi remote capabilities with smartphones are excellent.
• Small, light body.
• 4.5 fps, faster than the 5D2 at least.
• Same battery as 5D2, 5D3, 7D & 60D, thanks Canon.
• Silent Shutter taken from 5D3.
• EV -3 sensitive center focusing point.
• Weather sealing.

Canon 6D - Me Not Likey:

• Crappy outer focusing points, a no-go for me.
• 1/4000 max shutter speed, I checked my photos and I shoot a lot of 1/6400 and faster shots in full sunlight.
• Crappy outer focusing points, oh, I mentioned it before.
• LCD auto brightness not available, a very nice feature on the 5D2, sucks not to have it.
• Loss of joystick.
• 97% viewfinder, come on, I hate it when I carefully frame a shot only to find out that I have to crop something I didn't notice while shooting.
• Crappy outer focu..., oh well, you get the idea.

 
Nikon D600 - Me Likey:

• Sony 24 MP full-frame sensor, I expect amazing things.
• 100% viewfinder.
• Can mount DX lenses.
• Can switch between DX & FX modes.
• Commander pop-up flash.
• Dual SD UHS cards, bravo Nikon.
• 5.5 fps, woot.
• Weather sealing.

Nikon D600 - Me Not Likey:

• 1/4000 max shutter speed, however, for Nikon purists, previously they had a base ISO of 200 and a max shutter speed of 1/8000, now that the base ISO is 100, they can get away with 1/4000.
• Center clustered AF points, although it has 9 cross type points, they are all very close to the center point, so they can be considered as one large cross type point.
• EV -1 focusing compared to Canon's EV -3, although I don't it won't differ 90% of the time.
• No dedicated AF-ON button.
• Can't change aperture electronically during live view, you have to have a lens with an aperture ring.

 
As you can see, both cameras are comparable, with a clear edge towards the Nikon, now when someone tells me they want to switch to full frame, I will certainly point them to the D600, at least they can use their DX lenses, bravo Nikon.
 
Oh, I wish Sony makes an RX1 with a 50mm Zeiss lens, and sell it for $1000, I would buy one.
 

 

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Canon 5D Mark II: First Impressions

That's me, with the 5D Mark II and the 50mm f/1.4 wide open

I finally did it, I went crazy and switched to full frame, it has been going through my mind for a long time now, maybe for more than 9 months now, so how do I feel about my first full frame camera? Hit the jump to find out.

QUICK HISTORY RECAP

I started my real digital photography with the Canon G11 point and shoot, I had some great time with it until I decided that I needed better auto-focusing and noise performance, so I sold my G11 and bought my first DSLR, the Canon 550D, you can read about it here.

After almost 9 months I had a good opportunity to sell my 550D for the same price I bought it for and buy a brand new 60D from Malaysia. I did a comprehensive comparison as you can see here.

WHY FULL FRAME?

Well, you have to thank our friend Mic here for the persuasion, but that's only one of the factors. In the back of my mind I always knew that someday I will make the switch, but I always fought that thought with the costs related to switching to full frame, but the more the idea circulated in my head, the more I got weaker, until one day I decided what the heck and just went for it, here's why:

• Ever since I bought my 60D from Malaysia, I had a two hour long talk with the shop owner, where he sort of convinced me with the full frame idea, but as you might guess the costs scared me away, I was sure I could have lots of fun with crop sensors.
• After that, me and Mic had very long (blog post long, actually) discussions via email regarding fulfilling his full frame dream, and I did my best at the beginning to convince him that he doesn't need to switch, and that he can get all the shallow DoF he wants using crop sensors, but no matter what, after several email exchanges, the idea started appealing to me on the subconscious level, and since I know myself very well, I knew I'd be giving up very soon.
• During the same time I read a lot of blog posts talking about how forgiving the 5D Mark II files were in regards to color accuracy, highlight and shadow recovery, and more importantly, how it produced beautiful skin tones. I find that usually indoors when using available light only or accompanied with bounce flash, I didn't get the actual skin tones and colors that I saw with my eyes. Check this post for example.
• Noise performance, I knew that at least I was going to have a one stop advantage over my 60D.
• Dynamic range, I also read that with the larger sensor, I would get a better dynamic range which would enable me to capture contrasty scenes with more details.
• Shallow DoF, who doesn't like it? I am often asked "How do you get your subject in focus, while the background is blurry? Does your camera have a setting for that?". With a crop sensor, I could get a shallow DoF by shooting close to my subject with a wide aperture lens, or use a crazy 400mm equivalent focal length. But with full frame, it's much easier than that, I'm not talking about eye-in-focus, eye-brows-out-of-focus DoF (although possible), but rather a shallow DoF at moderate apertures that makes it easy to get your subject in focus and blur the background even at wide to normal angles.

So, this is the why, but what about the actual results? How did the 5D Mark II perform?

Canon 85mm f/1.8 @ f/2.5

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Despite the advantages I mentioned above, I knew that switching to full frame would have some disadvantages as well, and notice that I wrote "switching", not "upgrading". I don't really think of the full frame as an upgrade of the crop sensor, maybe it's an upgrade in the cost level and the red ringed lenses, but not an upgrade as in "better".

Disclaimer: Before I delve into the advantages and the disadvantages of the 5D Mark II, you must know that I never had a problem with my 60D, I never had a focusing problem with any of my lenses, and that I love that camera from the depths of my heart and would buy another one immediately if I had some money laying aside.

5D Mark II Advantages:

• Larger and brighter viewfinder, it was not the same wow as when I switched from the 550D to the 60D, but the difference is noticeable, and I'm not sure how, but the first time I used it outdoors, the image looked as if I was using a CPL, colors looked vibrant and clear. I have not tried manual focus yet, but I feel it will be easier than the 60D.
• Better dynamic range, shooting a high contrast scene in full sunlight with my 60D usually resulted in a lot of overblown highlights that I wasn't able to fully recover, with the 5D I get a full histogram with a very low amount of blown out highlights, and the ability to recover them easily is amazing. Check the following example, and take a close look at the tops of the trees:

Before recovery, blown out highlights, but not as much as the 60D

After recovery, I was amazed how much detail ad color I was able to recover

•  Noise performance, that's one of the obvious advantages of the larger pixel size, the 5D Mark II noise at ISO 3200 is similar to or slightly better than ISO 1600 on my 60D, and I find myself shooting indoors at ISO 3200 a lot with the 5D, while getting more details and better skin tones.
• Shallow DoF, with my new 50mm f/1.4 lens wide open, I can get ridiculously shallow DoF, it makes dropping busy background out of focus much easier, even if the background is close to the subject. The results are more aesthetically pleasing images.
• Joystick for immediate AF point selection, I usually use the outer focus points for most of my shooting, I never got around to post about that, but I rarely place my subject at the center of the frame, and I usually use the top right or the top left points to focus on my subject's eye, I don't use the focus & recompose technique when shooting at wide apertures and close to my subjects, since the DoF is shallow and the eyes can get out of focus that way. Back to the 5D, it has a joystick at the back that can select any focus point immediately by one push towards that direction, no clicking or fiddling around, it's very quick when you're looking through the viewfinder.
• Micro Focus Adjust (MFA), that's one of the nice features that was present in the 50D and Canon received a lot of heat for when they didn't introduce it in the 60D,  but never having a single focusing problem with my 60D I didn't know what the fuss was about. But with the 5D and the shallower DoF, I found that I had to adjust my 35mm f/2 and my 50mm f/1.4 (my only non ring USM focusing lenses) to achieve accurate focus, however I didn't need any MFA with my 85mm f/1.8 or 24-105 f/4.
• Weather sealing, the 5D is weather sealed provided you're using a weather sealed lens, I never had the urge to shoot in the rain, but sometimes you get sudden rain or water splashes.

Bounce flash with the 50mm f1/.4 @ f/2.5

5D Mark II Disadvantages:

 I knew very well I'd lose many benefits when I switched (not upgraded, just to make sure) from my 60D, and I would really like to buy another 60D for the following reasons:

• Shutter speed, the 60D was quick, due to the smaller sensor and mirror assembly, it has faster frame rates and shorter black out times than the 5D, the first time I clicked the 5D's shutter, I heard a very slow and lazy ka-thunk as opposed to the quick 60D's immediate click. I don't usually shoot at a very fast frame rate, and I find the 5D's 4 FPS adequate, and I got used to the lazy mirror slap of the 5D, however, if you're using both cameras side by side, you will appreciate the 60D's faster shutter.
• Wireless flash, I lost the wireless flash ability that I sought in the 60D, and I am sure I will miss it, so I am in the process of ordering a 10m TTL cable instead. The majority of my flash usage is on-camera bounce flash.
• Focusing, the 60D had a newer and better focusing system with 9 cross auto focus points, the 5D only has one cross AF point at the center. I find that the outer points on the 5D are reliable most of the time, but in dim situations, the 60D is superior and can lock focus easier.
• Weight and size, the 5D is not much larger than the 60D, but you easily feel it, and I would love it if it was smaller.
• Sync speed, the 5D's sync speed is 1/200 sec vs 1/250 sec for the 60D, but I can use the 5D's ISO 50 to counter that, we'll see.
• Swivel screen, that's pretty obvious, and I already miss it.
• Intervaolmeter, I don't understand why does Canon need to have two types of ports for remote shutter releases and intervalometers, this is very stupid, and I had to sell my old one and buy a different one with the different 3-pin connection.
• Compact flash, maybe CF memory cards are superior to SD in transfer speeds, but other than that, they are ridiculously expensive, large, doesn't have standard readers on laptops/iPad/Android phones, and you face the danger of twisting the pins if you're not careful. And the 5D's battery door doesn't have a spring like the 60D.
• The longer reach, one of the greatest advantages of the crop sensors is the longer reach that they have, the tiny EF-S 55-250 had an equivalent of a 400mm lens on full frame, I cannot come close to this focal length on the 5D without paying a fortune and carrying a noticeably large lens.
• The EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro, easily one of my favorite and sharpest lenses ever, my last shoot with the 60D was done with this lens, and the photos are superb, I know there's the 100mm f/2.8 Macro, but it's larger, heavier and slower to focus, one day I will probably get it.

Really beautiful colors for the grass and the sky, 24-105 @ 24mm

I haven't used the camera for a long time yet, and once I feel that I'm totally comfortable and familiar with the 5D, I will post a more comprehensive hands on post. In the meantime I'm doing a major reshuffle in my lens collection after finally determining the styles and the focal lengths I like to shoot, so expect a new "Full Frame - Canon Lenses Chat" post.

If you have any questions or you want me to check anything for you, please tell me in the comments.

85mm f/1.8 @ f/4

RELATED POSTS:

Canon Lenses Chat - Part 1: Standard Zoom Lenses
Canon Lenses Chat - Part 2: Telephoto Zoom Lenses
Canon Lenses Chat - Part 3: Prime Lenses
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