Stuart Richardson
Active member
The title says it all. I have had it for a little over a week now, and I am getting more and more impressed. I have not had a chance to really compare the images with those shot in the same circumstances as the DMR, but in terms of daily use, it is much more usable for me. This past weekend I shot a charity fashion show for a friend. It mostly consisted of "green" fashions and sustainable or recycled clothing. In any case, I rented the 70-200 VR zoom to give it a try and got ready to shoot the show. I wound up shooting over 700 images, first in RAW, then switching to JPEG when the cards got full. Most of the fashion show was shot at f/2.8 on the 70-200 and at ISO 800-2000. The performance at those ISO's, even in jpegs is amazing. I also noticed that very few of the 700+ shots were incorrectly exposed, and few were out of focus, except where it was obviously my fault. The white balance was usually spot on, and overall, the workflow was very easy using lightroom. I shot most of the runway stuff with the 70-200 and much of the behind the scenes stuff with the 17-35 (often at 17mm...it was very cramped).
Did I mention that after 4 hours straight of shooting, chimping, AF and 700 frames, the batter was still reading 4 out of 5 bars? The camera is heavy, but very easy to hold onto for the whole day, the vertical shooting grip is excellent...much better than the DMR's. Essentially, conditions were very unfavorable, with poor lighting (particularly a bright sidelight and dark shadows...velvet curtains offered no bounce), cramped space, amateur models who would walk to fast or pose awkwardly, yet whatever difficulties there were, the camera did not seem to skip a beat. Overall I found it to handle superbly.
Here are a few shots:
ISO 2000 Jpeg:
And then these two are ISO 900.
Did I mention that after 4 hours straight of shooting, chimping, AF and 700 frames, the batter was still reading 4 out of 5 bars? The camera is heavy, but very easy to hold onto for the whole day, the vertical shooting grip is excellent...much better than the DMR's. Essentially, conditions were very unfavorable, with poor lighting (particularly a bright sidelight and dark shadows...velvet curtains offered no bounce), cramped space, amateur models who would walk to fast or pose awkwardly, yet whatever difficulties there were, the camera did not seem to skip a beat. Overall I found it to handle superbly.
Here are a few shots:
ISO 2000 Jpeg:
And then these two are ISO 900.