Q&A Answering your GEAR related questions #1

Hi everyone, thanks for joining me once again. I thought I'd do a Q&A video, answering some of the questions I'm getting in the comments section on YouTube. Some of the videos that I've been putting out, I've been getting quite a few questions. I thought I'd just pick a few and give a bit more of a detailed answer to some of them, and some of you might find the questions interesting and the answers interesting as well. So let's get straight into it. So the first question is from Anya, and Anya asks, says, thanks Martin, I just bought the Canon 5D Classic with a 50mm 1.8. And then the actual question itself is, I am mainly doing portrait and travel photography. Would you recommend the 17-40mm f4 or the 85mm 1.8 as a second lens? So I really like the 50mm 1.8 on Canon, especially on the 5D Classic. And I like all of the 50mm 1.8s. I would say that for those of you looking to buy one, either the 50mm 1.82 or the STM are good to go for. The STM is the better choice if you want to do some video work as well, which is why I'm switching to that as well at the moment, because I want to use it to do some video. But you've got a portrait lens already, and I think because you've already got a portrait lens and you're doing some travel work, it would make more sense for you to go to the 17-40mm, because the 17-40mm is going to give you all of those wide angle shots, especially when you want to get more of the background in. The 85mm compared to the 50mm might be better for just the headshot range, but the 50mm has the advantage over the 85mm where you're going to get more of the background, you can actually get some context into your pictures, so you can see where the person is. Now I'm thinking that whilst you're doing travel work, you're probably going to be more guessing more into having some location or being able to see where you actually are. So the 50mm would probably be a really good choice, or a 35mm. You've got the 50mm, stick with it, get the 17-40mm. And in fact, this is the trick with the 17-40mm, is you can kind of use it to do environmental portraiture as well, because it covers the 35mm range. You've got even from 24mm onwards, really, you can do stuff where you're including more of the environment, so consider doing that as well. And don't worry that it's an f4, sometimes it's nice to see where people are as well. So the 50mm f1.8 gives you that option to blur the background a bit, but still give context and do more of a traditional portrait. The 17-40mm will let you do your travel photography, but it's also going to open up some possibilities with your portraiture as well on the longer end. Think about that. Now Myles asks, as an RP and old Canon DSLR owner, I would like a comparison between EF lenses and the new RF lenses on the RF cameras. So this is putting EF lenses or RF lenses onto the RF cameras. There are lots of second-hand bargain EF lenses about, so it would be interesting to compare what you can get for your money between the two types, if you see what I mean. Yes, do. So here's what I think about it. I think that the RF lenses are almost always going to be technically superior to the EF lenses. They will lose, probably, some of them, something in character. I'm seeing that slightly, for instance, with the RF 51.2 versus the EF 51.2. The RF is the better lens technically. I think that EF still has something over it in terms of character, and that comes from its imperfections. So that's something worth bearing in mind with these lenses. But here's the real thing. Putting EF lenses onto the RF body with the adapter works perfectly. In fact, the focus is going to be better than on DSLRs because you're able to take advantage of the technology that comes with mirrorless. But let's get into what really matters. We're not interested in, let's say, which is technically the best performer. We're talking about what we're actually getting as a final result. We're interested in what our final pictures look like. And this is where I think, for me, I think Canon are slightly, this is going to sound harsh because they are making very good lenses, but I think they're slightly going down the wrong track with this. My feeling with RF mount is that they're kind of going for absolutely top-end image quality to try and stamp some authority over Sony. And then they've got these sort of budget RF lenses. For me, the EF lenses essentially fill the void. The lenses that I would recommend to most people are used 50mm 1.2 EF. Let's just use that lens as an example. It's not going to be technically as good as the RF equivalent, but the RF equivalent is much more expensive. It's twice the price and you're not getting, in my opinion, twice the lens for it. I don't think you are. And in some ways, for portraiture, I don't want razor razor sharp, which is what the 50mm 1.2 is for. I want buttery smooth. That's what I'm after. I'm after silky buttery smooth. I'm not after cutting knife sharp, right? There's a difference. So I think that the RF lenses are excellent. I think the EF lenses represent that middle ground of price. So now the L lenses used are half or a third of the price sometimes of the RF lenses. And I think that they're worth the money. I don't think that the RF lenses are worth what they cost because I don't think that the EF lenses are enough. You just don't need more than that. And if you think that your photography is about the lens quality being more than what the EF L glass already is, then I think you should probably start thinking about what it is that you're trying to express with your photography. Okay. It comes back to that thing that I will say often in my videos. In the end, people care about what you're expressing in your pictures. Most lenses are good enough to do that job. I shot the Chainsmokers cover for Sony Music on an 85mm 1.8 EF. These lenses are good enough. They're more than enough. In the end, it's about your vision and what you're doing. I like this question because I'm going to mention a few other questions that have had that similar. So Robbo says, in relation to the 5D Classic, I'm considering one of these as a second camera. Regarding aspect ratio, can it be set to one-to-one, so can it shoot in a square crop? You know, you can set up some cameras so you can shoot square images. Other people have asked me things. I've had several messages. What's the video quality like on the 5D Classic? What's the live view like? Quite a few questions come to me of that type. Right. Here's the thing with the 5D Classic. You can change the ISO. You can change the aperture and the shutter speed. On a good day, sometimes, you can just about make out what you took a photograph of on the back screen. That is it, people. Just see the camera as that. I know you can. I'm sort of exaggerating and being a bit sarcastic, but actually, if you just see it as that, this is just a basic camera, and that's part of the beauty of it, I think, is that you're just using a simple camera. You forget about all your focus modes and all the touchscreen and all that kind of stuff. This is a simple camera. It's the essence of what a camera actually should be. It's a bit like going back to an analog watch. That's the best analogy I can think of for you. It's like going back to an analog watch. It's not going to be able to set an alarm on it. It's not going to be able to look at the weather or anything like that. It's an analog watch. See it like that. A person with the username RS writes to me and says, Hi Martin, I'm a beginner about to take my first photography class at university. The question's quite long, so I'll abbreviate some of it. RS asks for a basic kit that can be put together at a budget. I said, I need to know what genre of photography and I need to know a budget. So the genre of photography was portrait and some landscape stuff as well, and just kind of nature photography, and a budget of about £450. So you're starting out in photography and your university degree, I guess this is either a module or you're actually doing a photography degree. You're looking at the 5D Classic and the D700. I'm not going to recommend you for either of those cameras, although there would be no problem with them, but they would be my sort of second and third choice and not the first one. My first choice for you is going to be the 5D Mark II, and I'm going to explain why. Considering you're going to be going to university and this is going to be something where you're going to have to be producing work probably at a reasonable rate. I think having a better quality screen on the back compared to the 5D Mark I, you're not going to have the time luxury that comes with shooting, going back and looking on the computer. Oh, I need to do this bit differently next time. You need to be able to kind of see more on the spot what you're doing. That's why I would push you more towards the 5D Mark II. Now in terms of lenses, I think you should just get the 50mm 1.8 and that's it. You can still do good landscape photography on a 50mm lens, but with you going to university, I'm betting that portrait is going to feature a lot more heavily within that. Get the 50mm 1.8 or as an alternative, a 40mm 2.8. That could be a good lens as well, but that might push you out of your budget range. When I think back over my photography career, I could probably have shot 90% of everything. It would be hard at times, but I could probably have gone away with a 50mm 1.8 and a 5D Mark II. For almost all of it, it's a push, especially on landscapes, because you have to kind of stitch panoramas and things together sometimes, or you can just work within the constraints of that lens. But I really think that there's no excuse for someone not to be able to produce a professional, complete body of work on a 5D Mark II and a 50mm 1.8, because I can tell you that I can do it. And if I can do it, you can do it too. That would be my recommendation for you. And the next question comes from, I hope I've pronounced this correctly, Sujit. I think that's right. For wedding photography, which camera is better, the Nikon D4 or the Nikon Z5? I'm going to answer this. I had the D3S, so I'm going to kind of say that the D4 is like a slightly better version of the D3S in my mind. I've not used the Z5, but the thing is, when you've used enough cameras and you've been a photographer for long enough, you can kind of look at the layout. And in terms of at least for usability and looking at the specs, you can get a reasonably good idea of what you're going to be in for with that. You can kind of tell to a degree. What you can't tell is what the rendering of the files is going to be like. And that is half the game. I've seen loads of pictures from the D4, and the D4 has a really, really good sensor in it. The Z5, I don't know. But here's the thing, you're going to be shooting weddings. The ergonomics and layout and usability and robustness, build quality of a camera are really important because you're shooting a lot of pictures and you need the ability to be rough with your gear, at least the ability to be like that. You need something that's a bit of a tank. So personally, I would push you towards the D4 for all of those reasons. If you look at where Nikon segment and what they build these cameras for, I remember when I used my D3S, it was just a joy to use. Yes, it's heavy, but the advantages of the ergonomics when you're shooting for a long time really, really pay off. It's a camera where you've got big controls. It lends itself better to high volume photography. You'll never come into a situation at a wedding where the D4 will struggle or in any way let you down. I'm not saying the Z5 would, but the D4 definitely won't. So that would be my recommendation for you. If you've got any questions about any camera gear that you are thinking about, maybe trying to decide, leave me a comment. I'll give you my opinion on it if I've used it. If I haven't used it, I'll probably still tell you what I think based on my overall photography experience. Take care of yourselves and I'll see you again in the next video. Take care. Bye bye.