MudEyes

“be not blind for the soul lies deep”

Archive for the 'post by Ryan' Category

Night-time Shenanigans

After a grrrrEAT day of shooting Michelle and Cody’s engagement session (entry coming soon) Our friends Andy and nicole Foster “invited” us over for Dinner and chilling time! I brought along the camera stuff because she has been wanting to get a nice camera and I look hooking people on photography =) So I let her play around with it a little before and after dinner. Here is a shot where I am teaching her the effects of a wide angle. (Canon 28mm f/1.8 wide open)

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Later on we decided to embark on a late night photo-adventure to downtown Kalamazoo! Holly got these paper balls that you put lights in a hang from IKEA and we thought we might be able to have some fun sticking a 580EXII in there! I am not going to lie I am pretty excited about how great they came out!! Here was the first shot after some flash strength tweaking. I think this was about 1/16th power fired from another 580.

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Then Andy had this genius idea to hide behind the bushes to make it look suspended!

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He was quite the trooper in those bushes so we could get some great shots!!

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After this shot we decided we hadn’t taken a 52 shot with both Holly and I, it was due so this is what we came up with! I call it: Strobist Pokist [11/52]

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Then we let Andy have some fun for being such a good sport, and I think it looks great with Canon’s 15mm fisheye. Then we had a little fun with long exposures!

Shot with Canon 100mm f/2.8 @ f/22 for 8 seconds at 50 iso

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Long exposure with the help of my iPhone running the “flashlight” app.
Shot with a Canon 28mm f/1.8 at f/11 for 30 seconds and 200 iso.
pilot light triggered 5 times for rear flash.

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Remember that cool shot of Holly’s eyeball? We let Nicole borrow them for a bit =)

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We had so much fun today, the weather couldn’t have been better, and we have a couple engagement shoots tomorrow so the season is here! I will leave you with ONE of the shots I am really excited about from the engagement, but there is so many good ones to come. Much love all.

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2 comments

Random updates

Ok! We have been real busy for one trying to get these workshops up and planned. It has taken a lot of emailing and organization which are areas which have been hard for me but everything is working out.

I just wanted to give you some updates since I haven’t put anything on here for a while. Lets start with last weeks 52!

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I know hot right? This one is week [9/52] And I call it “Fun w/ Facial Hair / CreepyMcCreeperton” Like it says I am just having some fun before shaving my full beard off from when I was freezing in Grand Haven doing my last construction job, so don’t hide your kids! I am a nice guy under there!! I did shave it off like 5 minutes after i made it that way because we were shooting Brent, and Steph’s wedding that Day!

They were a pretty fun couple as you prolly saw from the slideshow that was up earlier. I took it off because I didn’t know how to keep it from auto playing. Which is annoying every time you open mudeyes.

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That week it was beautiful out! So we decided to take a walk down to subway for some lunch! FYI ranch isn’t good on turkey =&. On the way back Holly asked me if I wanted to stop in the apartment office to see if the corner unit above us was vacant. She has been kind of going crazy (as was I) because there just isn’t enough space for what we need it this one bedroom. (For those of you who don’t know we both work from small one bedroom apartment there ya go!)

Anyway, we went in there and told us the end unit in the building about 50 yards from our building just opened up and if we want it, we could move in by the 18th! Sooo we are moving into an end unit in the next building =) This is been a pretty impulsive week.

It might have been that night I was looking on the apple site and I saw what I have been waiting for!!
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Ho-ly-crap that thing is awesome. Here’s the tech specs for all the tech geeks like me. I can’t explain the way the new processors work but it’s much faster!! =) We got the 2.26 8(!!!)core “Nehalem”Processors 6GB RAM (awesome) a terabyte HD and the new 24” LCD Cinema Display!
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This is Holly’s new workhorse so I had to spoil her a little bit so hopefully she will enjoy editing 25+ weddings and who knows how many seniors and families! I got the hand-me-down this time with a crappy tricked out 24″ iMac. I know life’s not fair. Anyway it arrives this Tuesday when we are the most busy with packing. So I won’t even be able to play with it! Dangit!

That Thursday we were at Andy and Nicole’s always fun office party and they just got a new 42″ Philips LCD TV which was great to watch The Office on! We got to talking about it and how I have never had a big TV and how we only had a sweet sweet vintage 25″ that was about 15 years old! They told us the got it from Sam’s club for under 600 bucks!! I was stunned that it was even possible! Soooo you can prolly guess that we went out the next day to Sam’s to see if they had any re-furbs laying around, which oddly enough they did! I told you it has been a impulsive week! But really they are all things we have been thinking about doing for a while and when opportunity knocks, I guess I love to swing the door open!

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I love how all the things we would get in normal life is business related and a tax right off! I think I picked the right profession!

(NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**NOTICE!!**

I just wanted to say that by me putting this all on mudeyes, I hope you guys don’t see us as Braggy-McBraggertons. I have to give thanks to the Lord for one that he showed me my talent and put things, jobs, and people in place to be successful, and gave me a wife that I couldn’t do any of this without! I am not really bragging, I am just so excited about how much we are blessed. I haven’t always had a perfect life and God has put both Holly and I through a lot so that we could learn from it and help other people. I just want you guys to be excited with us!! We love you guys and we wouldn’t be were we are without a lot of the people that read this Blog so thanks you for encouraging us enough to be so successful!

Ok how about a sweet random macro shot of Holly’s eye I took with the Canon 100mm macro lens at f/8 handheld at 1600 iso!?

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pretty sweet right?

And to end off this Random update entry, I leave you with our 10th week of 52 portraits. If you haven’t seen the movie Coraline, this is what she is going for! I guess the theme for the last couple weeks has been scary and creepy =)

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Great right? hope you weren’t about to go to bed! That movie was a lot freakier then I thought it would be. But an awesome visual movie nonetheless!

On one last Random note, The workshops are coming up quick! And I have been setting up a fall workshop tour with a few people Down south before thanksgiving! Good thing I have some contacts that are willing to help me out! It is looking like we will Start out in Columbia, SC on October 24th-25th. Thanks Dan! Next we will be heading to Jacksonville where Dana Goodson will be helping me out, Then down to West Palm Beach thanks to the wonderful and talented soul of Liz Leighton! (big fan of hers) Next is Tampa/Clearwater which is still up in the air where I dont have a for sure contact just yet! The last stop before Thanksgiving would be in Little Rock, AR where Todd Owens is going to be helping me organize! Its going to be awesome!!

We still have spots open in out Dayton workshop this April 4th and 5th! Hit me up for some more info!!

Ryan Gauper's Facebook profile

OK! there is one last thing I forgot to mention.
You know how we have been going broke buying everything at once? Well there is one more thing. We decided to sell our last zoom lens, the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS L. We got this one right before Christmas along with 10 grand of Canon Equipment with our switch from Nikon. We actually switched to Canon for their Fixed focal length lenses, but thought we needed this Lens for the range. Buut being a prime lover I tried the 135mm f/2L and I am willing to part with this zoom in favor for the 135mm. I dont even like zooms but if you are going to have a zoom this is the one!

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You can see more pictures and such here.

I was going to wait until I sold that but with the workshop and and wedding coming up next weekend I went ahead and ordered the Canon 135mm f/2L yesterday!! You may remember when I rented it for the Colorado wedding i had a month ago but I love it!! I mean come ON look at the bokah.

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Fageddabodit!

So I really would love to sell that zoom to help out. It is listed for $1699 at most every online retail store so I am asking $1,600 since I only used it a couple times and it is a US lens with existing warranty! Please email me at Ryan@RyanRichardPhoto.com if you are interest!

Until next time, mucho loveo!

4 comments

Jessie [workshop model preview]

Hey Guys! we have been getting a great response for the workshop and I have been rounding up some models for us to practice on and found a great location that hopefully the city wont mind me using! I can usually get away with sneaking around abandoned places but its a little harder with like 16 people =) There is like one spot left in the kalamazoo workshop and a few in the Dayton one so I am really pumped to have some fun soon!

Holly has really been nailing the editing process which is great for all you workshoppers! So without further adue, here is Jessie!

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Man I wish I could post them all this big but it barely gets cut off of the right side. Dont worry we are planning to get a new fancy blog soon with big pictures for all! heres some more =)

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I don’t know why but I always like seeing pictures of people on shoots. So I thought I would share one of my own!

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Wasn’t she great?! Now I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but this is a NON zoom, prime lens ONLY workshop! I may have someone bring a kit lens or even a pro zoom but only to illustrate how much better a prime is. Notice also that I am close to my subject using a 50mm. I have seen a lot of workshops where they all stand 10-20 feet back as if there was a line, but that is not going to happen in ours. You will be pushed out of your comfort zone to get different angles and get close, because primes loooove to get close!

Hope you enjoyed this! We have a hair and makeup artist come in from Detroit that is actually one of my brides so our subjects are going to look edgy and stunning! Get excited!!

p.s. I only put 10 on here because I dont like to log jam my blog but if you add me as a friend on facebook, you can see 27 of them! =)

Ryan Gauper's Facebook profile

4 comments

Break Free workshop

Details for the Kalamazoo and Dayton workshop have been set! We are still working out locations and the fine details but here’s the story!

I have been really getting pumped about getting sponsorship from borrowlenses.com and if these two workshops go well I would really love to do some traveling around the country and do a workshop tour. I sure know enough people in a lot of states to make it possible!Here are some of the cities where workshops could happen this fall:

Salt Lake City, UT
Detroit, MI
Denver, CO
Dallas, TX
San Francisco, CA
Cedar Rapids, IA
Nashville, TN
Phoenix, AZ
New York, NY

So if you are a fan or a friend and would like to see us come down and do a workshop for you and your friends please let us know! Wish us luck =)

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6 comments

Valentine’s Day Weekend

So Holly and I went down to Dayton to visit with her friend Konrad, get her hair did, and while we are down there have a lead meeting with a potential wedding client! Being Valentines day I figured I would check out good ol’ Orbitz to see if there was any fancy hotels for a reasonable price. I found the DoubleTree down in Miamisville down near Dayton. Check out my romantical skillz!

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I got in trouble the next day for eating her cooking =( good thing it wasn’t valentines day anymore!

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The inside said, oh well spelling is for losers, wanna make out? šŸ˜‰

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While she was getting her hair done I went to the room and unpacked everything and made everything look nice for her arrival.

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It was a pretty fancy place we enjoyed it!

That night we went to Cincinnati to meet up with our friends Brent and Katie. Katie designs all our albums and she is great at it. We thought we would show our appreciation but hooking them up with a free Valentines day shoot! It helped that they are a fun good looking couple šŸ˜‰

Heres a few that i teased them with before we finished them all!

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I had to scale a wall and hang off a fence to get this wonderful upshot!

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We found some really cool places found earlier by Brent. Client’s suggestions never work out like this.

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After some cool industrial shots we headed downtown for some urban/night shots.

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We needed a break from the cold and stubbled into this banquet building location that begged for the fisheye!

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We actually ended up spending our valentines Dinner with them at Steak N’ Shake and it was a great time !

On Sunday we had lunch with Holly’s friend Konrad from Cedarville, and then called up a couple friends to have a photo adventure in yellow springs! My friend from flickr Thor and Holly’s friend Cameron and his wife came along just to see what we could see and have some fun!

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Cameron let me use his Canon 17-40mm f/4 and while I am not a zoom fan, using an ultra wide is fun!

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Maybe I should try and make this a texture?

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Thor letting me have some fun with the fisheye =)

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We found a random washing machine that had a free sign on it… So of course I made Holly model on it for us =)

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And finally Holly getting this AWEsome frozen leaf shot.

That night we stayed with Brent and Katie in Cincinnati. That morning we called up Holly’s friend Cornel to do a shoot with us just for fun. It turned out pretty great and we even got Katie to join in on the fun!

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Taken by Holly in a fast food sign graveyard!

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Playing with the focal length settings on my 580EX II

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One of our greatest upshots!

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Cornel and her red hot mini cooper.

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The location we found turned out great! It was an old water treatment plant. Great colors! [taken by Holly]

Most all these shots taken wide open with the awesome Sigma 50mm f/1.4 HSM.

All in all we had a great time, got some great shots and we even got a big TV that Katie and Brent gave us that they weren’t using after they bought their new TV. But we have an old and busted 25 inch tv since we spend all our money on equipment!

BIG NEWS!

We set the dates for workshops in Kalamazoo[march 28th-29th], and possibility Dayton [April 3-4th]

check out this jackpot location we found in Dayton!

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Here is some details.

The workshop is going to be geared toward beginner to Intermediate photographers and we are focusing on using “Prime”, or fixed focal lenses. I am going to be renting a variety of lenses like 35,50 and 85mm. Maybe even a fisheye!

Also we are going to talk about different lenses and what is best for your style. We will also be talking about exposure and some other technical issues new photographers face. We will be doing a good amount of shooting on some various models and talk about how to shoot in manual exposure mode.

The second day will be focused on editing and workflow along with some more shooting!

A DSLR is required and fixed focal length lenses are what we will be using so if you have one of two be sure to bring it! You will also be able to use anything I own and anything I rent for the workshop!

If you are interested I just need a half down deposit to hold your spot as there is only 10 spots available. The cost will be $250 for 2 days. Also please let me know what gear you are working with, and what kind of things you would like to learn about most.

Thanks I hope to see you there!!
ps heres a list of lenses I plan to rent

Canon 135mm f/2L,
Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro,
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4,
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II,
Canon EF 85mm f/1.8,
Canon EF 28mm f/1.8,
Canon 15mm f/2.8 fisheye,
Sigma 50mm f/1.4 HSM x 2,
Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF,
Nikon 85mm f/1.8 AF,
Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 AF,
Nikon 10.5mm f/2.8 fisheye,
Sigma 30mm f1.4 for Nikon DX,
Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM for Canon.

Please email me if you are interested! ryan@ryanrichardphoto.com

I already have 6 people interested for the Kalamazoo workshop so let me know soon! Thanks!!

2 comments

Canon 5D Mark II vs. Nikon D700

Hello again!

As promised, here are my impressions of the new Canon 5D Mark II
versus the Nikon D700. In mind my primary focus is on the 5D.

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I have just been taking notes of pros and cons and I guess I will just
expand upon them and see how things go! I am only mentioning things
that are important to me as a wedding/portrait photographer and only
differences that stand out against each other. Surprisingly these are
two very different means to one glorious end. Lets start with the good
news.

Advantages:

The 5D has GREAT Image quality. I never thought 21
megapixels would make a difference, but I donā€™t know for some reason
there is just a magical quality! It looks especially good in the
screen after you take the picture. Of course thats with jpeg settings
applied albeit how minimal they are when I shoot. There is a lot of
room for cropping, which for me is good since I prefer using primes. I
guess that can be somewhat of a disadvantage for some since you need
the best glass to take advantage of the resolution. Which means big
cash for good glass.

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Here is a crop from the 5D shot with a 50mm Canon f/5.6 @1/60th ISO 400 Below is the same crop with the D700 and a nikkor 50mm at the same settings.
You may be asking, why not show both cameras at 100 percent crop? Well I didn’t to show the advantages of more megapixels. At 100 percent the D700 is much softer the the same crop of a 5D. Here is a sample of the resolution difference:

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I wish i could show you larger images, but this blog cant contain it! The differences are a little more subtle when viewed small like this. Which is a great achievement for both sensors since this is an extreme crop! to see bigger files go here

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Also something weird it that the same conditions yielded a brighter image from the nikon or is it more contrast? Maybe both? Intriguing nonetheless.

The ISO performance is almost on par with the D700, with twice
the resolution.
I never thought this would be possible
jamming this many pixels onto a 35mm sensor, but they have seemed to
make it look pretty good. They do apply a good amount of noise
reduction at higher iso even when shooting raw, but it doesn’t look
too bad. 3200 looks fine but 6400 starts to smudge a little too much
and I try not to use it unless I have to.
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The Above is a very cropped image is the 5D with no noise reduction at 6400
and the below image is the same from the D700. Now I am not showing this but the shadow noise is very well controlled with the nikon but you can see a lot of smudging. The 5D has a lot of the red dot noise in the shadows, but is still pretty sharp and contrasty, while the D700 isn’t.
Keep in mind the pixels are smaller on the 5D because its not at 100 percent like the D700 is. Another advantage of more resolution.

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Canon has the best prime lenses in the class. (And
the most expensive.) But like I said earlier, thatā€™s what kind of
glass it takes to resolve 21 megapixels! This is one of the main
reasons I switched. You need as much speed as you can get shooting
weddings. The light more often then not, sucks… a lot. So thereā€™s
just no replacement for speed.

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For Nikon we have the 50 and 85mm f/1.4 along with the 135mm f/2
For Canon we start out in the range with the 24 and 35mm f/1.4. Then comes the super speed 50 and 85mm f/1.2 topping out with the 135mm f/2
Not to mention all of Canons lenses are recent designs leaving Nikon in the dust in the prime time.

The 580EX II has been somewhat impressive. Though I
haven’t used Nikons flagship flashs so I canā€™t say for sure if its
better. They have been fairly easy to use, as far as flash goes.

Screen is brilliant, though Nikonā€™s is just as good.
Not much of advantage but just thought I would throw that out there.
At least Canon is showing a little effort unlike when they tried to
pass an $8,000 camera with a junk screen!

VIDEO 1080p! with external audio out. (good because
the internal mic picks up everything going on around the camera.
especially manually focusing, and noisy IS) Though I havenā€™t used the
video much itā€™s a huge, huge plus for a lot of people. Iā€™m sure i
could use it for certain occasions to give me a slight edge. We love
to travel as well, and photojournalism overseas almost demands video
is some scenes. I do wish it auto focussed though. Itā€™s surprisingly
tough to compose, correct exposure and compose. Not made for full time
video, but sure is handy!! Check out this video shot with the 5D Mark II

5D Movie

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The 5Ds Auto ISO knows your focal length and sets shutter
speed accordingly.
This is a pretty cool feature. We donā€™t
normally use auto, but if you are switching from a wide to a
telephoto, this can be very helpful to limit iso when wide and still
get a higher shutter speed with a telephoto.

5D doesnā€™t have internal flash. Why is this a plus?
Well for me I didnā€™t like it on the D700. I would always bump it, even
with a flash mounted, and I donā€™t know, it just seems less
professional with a built in flash. I also like the look of the
shorter pentaprism cap.

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Much lighter then D700 (1.8lbs vs. 2.2lbs) Yeah itā€™s
less then a half pound, but every ounce counts when its hanging from
your neck for 12 hours!

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ISO expandable to 50 equivalent. I always find myself
wanting more when using fill flash to get blue skies that require very
little exposure. So this is nice! Iā€™m not sure what kind of penalty it
brings being ā€œboostā€ but I would be interested to know.

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The 5D has a dedicated live view button. This is nice
because I would always forget I was in live view on the D700 because
its on a dial. Once I press the live view button on the 5D it goes
back to normal when Iā€™m done. Along those same lines, I have found the
exposure simulation VERY useful because I shoot in Manual. i donā€™t
have to click off frames trying to get my exposure and white balance
right while my subjects think I am taking a picture.

LV

It has strap ring under grip for more vertical use. I
havenā€™t dared trying this while on a job but maybe I will sometime.
Then again, I donā€™t find myself shooting vertically as much as with
the D700 because the grip sucks comparatively. But then maybe thats
somewhat of a plus because I found myself shooting vertically a little
too much.

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Strap rings are fixed not floppy. I found this kind
of annoying with the D700. Just a little thing but a nice change.

Strap hangers

Lens mount feels slightly more firm and wobble-less
though I still wish it didnā€™t move at all.

Quiet shutter release. The shutter release sound is
an acquired taste. After hearing the Nikonā€™s it sounds electrical and
junky and slow. Alas I have gotten used to it, and it is more quiet,
which is good for ceremonies and anywhere else you want to be ninja
like while trying to get candids. I will say the blackout time is
shorter on the Nikon.

ISO reading is always in status bar. Those times with
the Nikon when I find I have been shooting at a higher iso speed then
needed are very frustrating, so this is a nice addition.

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More room for fat thumbs in horizontal (but much
worse in vertical) This isnā€™t a huge deal, because the nikon is still
sufficient but just nice to have a little extra room.

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All the Preset white balance settings have their K value next
to them
(In the menu). Since itā€™s harder with Canon to shoot
with manual Ks this may be handy to memorize k value at pre-
settings.

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The Custom user mode is pretty awesome! There is 3
spaces on the command dial (C1,C2 and C3) This is great for me,
because you can prepare yourself for different settings beforehand;
not with people waiting, or with you missing the shot! Like when we
run out of the ceremony to get a shot of them walking out of the
chapel, the next place you are trying to shoot is much different. You
can preset the exposure, white balance, iso, pretty much everything as
far as I know. The only drawback is that if you switch settings while
on one of the custom modes at some point they go back to what you
originally set it to in the beginning. If you want to change anything
permanently you have to register it in the menu. But nonetheless a
really cool and useful feature!

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With the 5D you can use different sized raw files.
which can be helpful to save room while shooting images you know they
wont blow up. But then maybe you wont have the same cropping ability?
We haven’t really used it yet but itā€™s a nice option to have.

Disadvantages:

21 megapixels. We have found that shooting with that
much resolution is surprisingly not as easy to edit(At least
creatively). We use Adobe Lightroom 2 and it just seems so far, that
it takes more of everything to affect so many pixels the way we are
used to with the D700. We find ourselves maxing out the slider without
much happening. I donā€™t know if thats just lightroom not being
powerful enough, but hopefully others are finding the same and will be
fixed sometime in the future. Bottom line, maybe good maybe bad, but
you can get some great results it just takes a lot more effort.

Battery Grip feels cheap and not nearly as good as
the 5D Grip and not even close to the MB-D10. It feels like the old
D200 grip which was even better then the Canon grip. Nikon has a leg
up on that front. Maybe its a marketing choice making the D1s look
like itā€™s worth the extra money. I know I would pay more for a grip
that felt like the Nikonā€™s does.

Nikon Grip

Look how nice the Nikon grip is. The curved thumb, and curved grip show nikon gives a crap how things feel. You can see how soft it is compared to the Canons. I also really like the stalkless design. For some reason both batteries put in the canon drain at the same time unlike the nikon that does one at a time. Who cares? Well sometimes you dont use both batteries so you dont want to have to charge both. With Canon, you dont get that option.

canon grip

The 5D bodyā€™s rubber is not as soft and grippy as D700. (see above). strong> This was something I really loved about the Nikon and it will
be missed! Seems like a no brainer to me Canon. Again, maybe the D1s
has good soft rubber so hooray for capitalism!!

Canā€™t manually select WB with out going into the menu. strong> THIS is a biggy. I mean come ON! I am a wedding photographer,
I donā€™t have time to go into a menu for that! What pisses me off more
is that in the 1D series you can assign the ā€œsetā€ button for white
balance but can you in a cheaper camera? Oh no. You gotta pay
thousands more for that! 10,9,8,7… Ok I am calm… they did
make up for it a little by being able to adjust WB in live view where
I can nail it pretty well. But its still much slower then the way
Nikons change Ks manually.

You canā€™t view last image magnified without pushing play
button first.
This is my other big beef. The D700 was awesome
for checking focus. you just press the center button after the shutter
releases, and you are looking at a magnified image, and on to the
next. With Canon, I can assign the set button to review, but for some
reason I have to press the set button even though the image is already
displayed if I want to zoom in. Not to mention after i press the
center button, you have to press the zoom button like 5 times to get
the mag. of the Nikonā€™s one push. Something that could be easily done
Canon! I hope I am helping them with the next firmware update. Heh,
boy do I wish that was true.

Focus points often get lost in dark situations and
unused points litter the viewfinder. Another thing the D700 is way
ahead on. 90% of the time I use the center point, and on the D700 even
if it got lost in the dark, (which i donā€™t ever remember happening) it
has the little ( ) things surrounding the focus points to give
you some reference. The 5D also doesnā€™t light up the focus point as
much when the shutter release is half pressed. I just canā€™t believe
Canon hasnā€™t updated their AF from the old one. Iā€™m sure the 1Ds is
much better donā€™t worry.

Build quality not up to par with D700. It is still
pretty good, but once you handle them side by side you can just tell
the Nikon is a brick! And as I said earlier, the soft rubber is a huge
plus for the nikon. Ergonomics are much better then I thought they
would be on the 5D so at least itā€™s got that going for it.

Shutter sound is horrible compared to D700. As I said
before, Sounds not nearly as tight or professional, but it is more
quiet. So pick what you would rather have.

Slow frame rate. I donā€™t use this a whole lot except
for jumping shots and such, so itā€™s not a huge deal. 8 frames per
second was pretty awesome on the Nikon compared to ā€œ3.9ā€. Good thing I
donā€™t really shoot sports.

Nikon has worlds more customizable options in a menu
that is easier to use. I expand upon this below. Not a deal breaker,
but really nice to have!

Canā€™t leave embedded comment or copyright info out of camera. Iā€™m sure you can do this in lightroom or something, but
something nice to have to prove the images are yours.

Cant Keep the backlight ā€œonā€ lighting the status window. strong> This is pretty annoying. The Nikonā€™s backlight comes on every
time the meter starts so I can see what I am doing in the dark.
Another easy fix if they were thinking at all.

Canā€™t reverse main and sub dials. As a D700 user, I
use the front dial for aperture, and the back for shutter speed. And
the highly customizable Nikon even lets me switch! Not the Canon
though… it is donkey backwards. I will get used to it, but man it is
frustrating for now.

Canā€™t change file naming. This was nice for Holly and
I because we could tell who shot what by the prefixes on the file I
liked to use RRP_xxxx.NEF or R27 yatta yatta… not a big deal just
again, nice to have.

Doesnā€™t have interval timer shooting. This is a
feature that is really awesome if you like time lapse. You canā€™t
program a release schedule like on the nikon. Hope you have a
timer…Kind of weird that they donā€™t have that… set it and forget
it for the nikon!

-39

No option to shoot compressed or lossless RAW (d700
has 23mb 14-bit lossless uncompressed files) I am guessing that the
Canon shoots compressed raw files because they are pretty consistently
25MB give or take. If they were uncompressed they would probably be
like 35MB. It may be a bigger deal to you more then me because they
donā€™t offer 12-bit like the Nikon, but they make up for it with the
sRAW file sizes.

Deleting a photo is a 3 step process for every image.
Unlike the Nikon which you can double push the trash button as fast as
you can. Canon makes up for it by letting you erase select images. For
example, you go through and check them off and delete all the selected
files at once. Which is almost better because you can uncheck
something you didnā€™t mean to check. You canā€™t un-delete something!

Cant Switch ISO as fast but not a big difference.
With the Nikon you Hold the button and turn the dial with two opposite
thumbs simultaneously. With the Canon you push with your index, and
then turn the dial with the index.

Well thatā€™s about all I have found… There is a lot of differences
donā€™t you think? Seems like the companies would adapt the smaller
advantages just as much as the big selling points. It seems to me that
Canon puts all their resources into sensor and lens development, while
Nikon took more time to refine every aspect of the body to be more
useful when shooting making it a joy to use. But then they are way
behind on lens development.

Really they are 2 great cameras! I would say if you donā€™t need the
resolution, video, or super fast primes, get the D700 you will love
it! If you DO need those things thereā€™s just no better then the 5D. I
am very demanding of cameras, and wish there was much more improvement
with the Mark II generation, but I may just have the wait for the
fourth generation 1Ds update, and hope they donā€™t go pixel crazy, and
work on ISO performance. One can only hope. Now I just have to save up
6 grand for a set of L primes! Wish me luck! And Feel free to comment
on any fixes for my problems or add any plus or minuses.

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