Hi all,
I posted in the "New member? Introduce yourself" thread, but thought I'd start a separate "hey I'm new here" thread so I could lay out some of my interests and see if anyone has advice they'd like to offer, that I might follow. (Those are two separate concepts, of course!)
For quite a few years, my wife and I were avid (but very amateur) DSLR photographers. She had a Canon T2i since before meeting me, and I had a T3i and a 5D Mk II. I had a bit more experience, so I taught her some tips and tricks, and we took our cameras everywhere that seemed useful: trips around the country and abroad, on cruises, and just walking around the neighborhood. My 5D II was used occasionally, but I just found it "too big, too slow" for what I wanted to do, though I did use it on a cross-country trip, especially for landscapes in the Rockies. But that seems like a lifetime ago now.
I'm not sure exactly of the circumstances, but it appears we both stopped using our DSLRs for "serious amateur photography" after our last big trip at the end of 2019 - one could hypothesize that the pandemic-induced travel shutdown meant that we got rusty/lazy, and our phones' cameras got better and better, so when we started traveling after the pandemic, we just brought our phones. Maybe because we weren't traveling anywhere we thought we needed long lenses, more just "fun, urban, and landscape" shots. I recently did a quick experiment, and the widest FoV on my phone is wider than 10mm on my T3i. I do remember being on one trip abroad where I wanted to take a wide shot of a church and found it easier to do that with my phone...so that was probably the beginning of the end for always having a DSLR around my neck.
It doesn't help that we have other hobbies / interests consuming our time and disposable income.
I did break out the T3i for a band photoshoot this past winter/spring - that was good use of that kind of tool: I set up the camera on a tripod, got the group in focus (yay for BBF!), and had someone else press the trigger after I got into the shot. Or for shots of just me, my wife did the focus/composing.
As noted in the other "New member" thread, we're looking to take a trip around the holidays that would probably benefit from bringing along a DSLR with a long lens. But I'm also sensitive to lugging around some of my bigger lenses (100-400L, 70-200L), so we have a pair of Tamron 16-300 lenses attached to our T3i and T2i cameras for this trip - not the best glass in the biz, and the 6.3 aperture at the long end is annoying, but we'll survive. I had considered bringing along the 10-22 and 12-28 for wider shots, but my experiment using my camera phone's widest FoV made that decision easy.
The T3i / T2i combo has served us well - the smaller form factor makes for good portability, and we like the added reach the crop sensor gives when using a longer lens. For a while I was waiting for the "next big thing" in APS-C, and the 7D2 was a possibility, but I was really hoping for an evolutionary step in sensor MP size, since at the time, competitors seems to be coming out with ~50 MP sensors. I might be mis-remembering the details.
The 90D seems like a good step up from the T3i, so I've been stalking that for a while to see if I want to make the investment (including the time to learn a new camera...). It would be compatible with all of our existing glass, but hopefully offer up better images and keeper percentages. I have read about some of its limitations, though, including noisy high ISO performance. I'm also hankering to upgrade my 100-400mm L to the "II" edition - ye olde dust pump is getting tired. OTOH, the evolution of mirrorless cameras with EVF seems to have reached a tipping point now where I'm considering those - I remember the first EOS M, and how it was "new but not better" for many users - like when the first DSLRs came out with pretty low-res sensors, and they simply couldn't compare to the images from the better film cameras of the day.
In reading through the forum, it appears the new mirrorless offerings from Canon are varied in capabilities, features, and pricing, as their range always has been. I'm not really interested in spending more than $2000 on a new body - heck, that's why the 90D is still on my radar. I'm an amateur, and this is no longer my primary artistic outlet. So I look forward to vicariously exploring the various models Canon is offering, and the new lenses that are dedicated to the new format. But my preferences remain with a body not much bigger than the T3i, with a sensor that can offer, either through high MP or APS-C sizing or whatever, images that are a whole step up from what I can achieve with the T3i. Oh, and a 10-1000mm f 1.2 lens that weighs less than a kilo, too, please, while I'm asking...
And thanks once again for carrying on the legacy of what was POTN and all that Pekka did.
I posted in the "New member? Introduce yourself" thread, but thought I'd start a separate "hey I'm new here" thread so I could lay out some of my interests and see if anyone has advice they'd like to offer, that I might follow. (Those are two separate concepts, of course!)
For quite a few years, my wife and I were avid (but very amateur) DSLR photographers. She had a Canon T2i since before meeting me, and I had a T3i and a 5D Mk II. I had a bit more experience, so I taught her some tips and tricks, and we took our cameras everywhere that seemed useful: trips around the country and abroad, on cruises, and just walking around the neighborhood. My 5D II was used occasionally, but I just found it "too big, too slow" for what I wanted to do, though I did use it on a cross-country trip, especially for landscapes in the Rockies. But that seems like a lifetime ago now.
I'm not sure exactly of the circumstances, but it appears we both stopped using our DSLRs for "serious amateur photography" after our last big trip at the end of 2019 - one could hypothesize that the pandemic-induced travel shutdown meant that we got rusty/lazy, and our phones' cameras got better and better, so when we started traveling after the pandemic, we just brought our phones. Maybe because we weren't traveling anywhere we thought we needed long lenses, more just "fun, urban, and landscape" shots. I recently did a quick experiment, and the widest FoV on my phone is wider than 10mm on my T3i. I do remember being on one trip abroad where I wanted to take a wide shot of a church and found it easier to do that with my phone...so that was probably the beginning of the end for always having a DSLR around my neck.
It doesn't help that we have other hobbies / interests consuming our time and disposable income.
I did break out the T3i for a band photoshoot this past winter/spring - that was good use of that kind of tool: I set up the camera on a tripod, got the group in focus (yay for BBF!), and had someone else press the trigger after I got into the shot. Or for shots of just me, my wife did the focus/composing.
As noted in the other "New member" thread, we're looking to take a trip around the holidays that would probably benefit from bringing along a DSLR with a long lens. But I'm also sensitive to lugging around some of my bigger lenses (100-400L, 70-200L), so we have a pair of Tamron 16-300 lenses attached to our T3i and T2i cameras for this trip - not the best glass in the biz, and the 6.3 aperture at the long end is annoying, but we'll survive. I had considered bringing along the 10-22 and 12-28 for wider shots, but my experiment using my camera phone's widest FoV made that decision easy.
The T3i / T2i combo has served us well - the smaller form factor makes for good portability, and we like the added reach the crop sensor gives when using a longer lens. For a while I was waiting for the "next big thing" in APS-C, and the 7D2 was a possibility, but I was really hoping for an evolutionary step in sensor MP size, since at the time, competitors seems to be coming out with ~50 MP sensors. I might be mis-remembering the details.
The 90D seems like a good step up from the T3i, so I've been stalking that for a while to see if I want to make the investment (including the time to learn a new camera...). It would be compatible with all of our existing glass, but hopefully offer up better images and keeper percentages. I have read about some of its limitations, though, including noisy high ISO performance. I'm also hankering to upgrade my 100-400mm L to the "II" edition - ye olde dust pump is getting tired. OTOH, the evolution of mirrorless cameras with EVF seems to have reached a tipping point now where I'm considering those - I remember the first EOS M, and how it was "new but not better" for many users - like when the first DSLRs came out with pretty low-res sensors, and they simply couldn't compare to the images from the better film cameras of the day.
In reading through the forum, it appears the new mirrorless offerings from Canon are varied in capabilities, features, and pricing, as their range always has been. I'm not really interested in spending more than $2000 on a new body - heck, that's why the 90D is still on my radar. I'm an amateur, and this is no longer my primary artistic outlet. So I look forward to vicariously exploring the various models Canon is offering, and the new lenses that are dedicated to the new format. But my preferences remain with a body not much bigger than the T3i, with a sensor that can offer, either through high MP or APS-C sizing or whatever, images that are a whole step up from what I can achieve with the T3i. Oh, and a 10-1000mm f 1.2 lens that weighs less than a kilo, too, please, while I'm asking...

And thanks once again for carrying on the legacy of what was POTN and all that Pekka did.
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