Last week I was able to pick up the Canon 5D Mark II, the 21 Megapixel full-frame DSLR, for a pretty good price. I currently have the newer, but crop-sensor 70D, and I’ve had that about a year. I have several “L” lenses and two EF-S crop-only lenses. I do not shoot video.
In the week I’ve had the 5D2, it has impressed me, and has made normal/wide-angle and portrait shooting easier, with great results; it’s a keeper.
The 70D is also a great camera, and the crop sensor helps get extra reach for wildlife and other distant subjects. It is also a newer design, so it has some feature improvements and probably performs better in some situations (sports, and as mentioned the crop sensor gets you more effective magnification, although that benefit can produce argument with some).
Ordinarily, I’d hang on to both and just see what a few months’ use will bring. But with Christmas next week, I’m anxious about waiting, thinking I might get top-dollar if I sell now rather than waiting until, say, Spring.
Those of you who have owned both full-frame and crop-sensor cameras, what do you think? Sell the 70D now or hold on to both?
I think it’s going to depend on how much wildlife and action photography you’re going to be shooting and how much gear you’re willing to lug around. If those are going to be your main or important shooting scenes, I’d say to hang on to the 70D, unless you don’t mind carrying huge 300mm+ telephoto lens.
I have both a full frame (Nikon D750/D700) and APS-C (Sony α77) camera and while I mostly use the D750 because of its superior sensor quality and unbeatable ISO levels, the α77 comes in handy during my son’s outdoor school events and when we go snowboarding. I can get away with a much shorter lens and it’s much easier to maneuver. I also use the α77 a lot as a video camera. It’s lighter than the D750, offers various frame rates up to 60fps and most importantly, the phase detection focus is superfast. But since you don’t shoot video, this may be a non-factor.
Anyway, congratulations on your new buy and if you like the 5D Mark II, I’m sure you’ll love the Mark III. They cranked up the ISO and AF points, and finally gives you a viewfinder with full coverage.
I’ve never had a full frame DSLR, so I could easily be missing something important. However, my thinking is:
Even the small DSLR is still pretty big, so how often will you be prepared to carry that one when the big one is too big/heavy? Probably not too often. Maybe on trips where luggage size/weight is an issue.
Keeping tech that you don’t use around is a waste, get rid of it while it still has some useful life in it and you’ll make someone else happy and/or get a decent amount of money for it.
So assuming the big one can do everything the small one can do (with Nikon FX cameras switch to crop mode when you mount a DX lens, assuming Canon is the same) then I’d probably get rid of the small one.
To echo what various other people have said already: Is there a niche that the crop-sensor camera would fill that the full-frame camera wouldn’t? People have mentioned size/weight and reach for sports/wildlife. Would you actually use the camera for that?
Also, I wonder about the wisdom of not waiting. At least in the Pentax world, there are still a ton of sales going on on new equipment, and I wonder if that would drive down the cost of used equipment, since why buy used if you can buy new for just a little more.
Well, it’s true that I haven’t picked up my 50D since I bought my 5DMarkIII, but then, I was never very happy with the 50D. But I do miss the crop factor as I shoot mostly wildlife. You will have to throw your crop lenses into the deal if you sell the crop body.
I’m not sure what events would push down the resale vale of the 70D – the 7D II was just released so you can pick up a 7D for small money now but that’s nearly a six year old model. The 70D has, what, Wifi and GPS? I’d be tempted to keep it as a backup camera, especially if you ever get drafted to take pictures at friend’s weddings or are planning model shoots where having a camera go down would be problematic. But then again, I’m too lazy to hawk my old cameras, so I have a drawer full of increasingly obsolete technology.
Thanks for the replies. I was going to force myself into making a decision yesterday (in order to get the 70D up on Craig’s List before the weekend), but now I’ve decided to spend the weekend doing some more in-depth comparisons. The pricing on used 70Ds is strong, and hopefully will remain so after Christmas.
The 70D has an edge in wildlife and sports (due to crop factor and faster shooting/focusing), and I really enjoy shooting wildlife and have captured some great images. I have the 70-300 L (having sold the huge 100-400), and it has good range, but for wildlife it seems you never have enough. But the reality is that I seldom shoot wildlife beyond the neighborhood (oh that I wish I had this equipment when I lived in FL), despite my desire to do more.
Regarding size and weight, I don’t notice any significant difference between the two, so that wouldn’t be a factor. For times when I truly want to travel light, I have a Lumix point-and-shoot that has taken some excellent photos for me in the past.
We’ll see what the weekend’s test shots reveal. I’m concerned about losing the reach of the crop, but after some testing I may find that this is not a valid concern.
People mentioning the “crop factor” are misunderstanding what that means. It might seem like it’s extending the reach of your lens but it’s the same size image being projected onto your sensor - it’s just not giving you the bits around the edges. You could get the same result by cropping a full-frame image in post.
I shoot with Fuji gear and bought the XT1 some months back and was faced with what to do with the older XPro1 body. After some thought It occurred to me that having a spare body is a good thing, and I would never be able to buy a spare body for the zero-cost of keeping my older one. Not only do I have the ability to have a semi-wide lens on one while shooting 90mm with the other at an event, but if one body fails I will have a safety net.
In your case you are talking crop vs FF, but they both use the same lenses and there is still great value in being able to have two bodies at an event, with no extra cost to you.
I would say keep it, but I’m someone who generally likes to shoot with two bodies. Plus that 70D is a killer camera, especially when it comes to the video capibilities vs the MkII.
Yeah, it’s more complicated than that. It’s the number of pixels being hit and the quality of those pixels. The 5D Mark II has roughly the same number of pixels as the 70D, but possibly higher quality pixels because of the size of the sensor (although maybe not, because the 70D’s is a later generation technology). You’re also using the sweet spot of the lens – most lenses are weaker at the edges. There’s also another advantage – because the “crop” camera is capturing only the pixels that you actually want, they’ll generally have faster frame rates.
The 70D can capture 7 frames/second compared to the 5DMarkII’s 4 frames/second.
First post on the forum after lurking for a few years, but this looks like a good place to jump in.
I have somewhat the same dilemma right now, but I’m not as far into it as you. I have a D7100 Nikon, and keep having a head screw about whether I should go FF. If I do, I will go all in and get the D810. That 36mp sensor has my interest because I always end up cropping alot. You apparently have the choice to make right now.
I would suggest keeping the crop until you are sure you want to go FF. My main reason for considering FF is high ISO performance. I do have concern about losing DOF with a FF because I mostly shoot landscape. I used to want more dynamic range, but I just got Lightroom and you can easily fix that except in complicated situations. Lightroom is crazy, btw.
With the high quality crop sensors out there nowadays I’m not sure you can get much benefit quality wise by going FF, and the future cost of a FF system is much more than a crop. All I am saying is the newness of the FF may be swaying you…use both for awhile and see which one is better. Regardless, I would probably end up keeping my D7100 if I went FF.
One thing to keep in mind…I believe eventually the big two (Nikon/Canon) will go mirrorless on their crops, so building up a crop DSLR system may be obsolete in a few years. I say this and Nikon just announced a new crop DSLR to replace the D7100 as their flagship crop, so it has at least one more iteration to go. Whether they discontinue their crop DSLR’s/lens who knows. I’m sitting tight for probably at least a year and not buying anything more until this all shakes out.
Unless you have an offer for the 70, I’d keep it. The EF-S lens will only work on the 70, so either your going to have to part them out, or sell them with the 70. That means you have to also check and see if your going to take a bath on selling them separately, or if your market will let you recover a good portion of the price paid.
I wanted to bring an update to this thread: I was able to find a buyer for my 70D a few days after Christmas. I sold the 70D kit (with 18-135 lens) plus an old 55-250 I had laying around for the same price I had paid for the 70D kit new a year ago. 70Ds on Craig’s List in my area are very rare, so I had a fair amount of interest.
I then turned around and found two great, workhouse L lenses on CL from someone switching to Nikon; I picked up the 24-105L and the 17-40L. I had spent the past week trying to figure out which of the two to get, and when I saw I could get both together for less than I sold the 70D for, I was ecstatic (well, as ecstatic as I get at my age). Just in trying out the lenses with the seller, I was amazed at the difference in the wide end between the two (17 vs 24) on the full-frame. I’m really happy - the 24-105 will serve me well as my walk-around and party lens, and the 17-40 as my sweeping landscape/architecture lens.
To backtrack a bit: what finally helped me decide whether to keep or sell the 70D was the pudding: the image quality - specifically the dynamic range - was undeniably better on the full frame 5D2. And, it turns out I appreciated the wider angles that I’ve been missing with the 1.6x crop. Although I know I will miss the reach of the crop, even with my 70-300, I know that I always want image quality, and dynamic range is something you can see plainly without pixel-peeping. I realized the times I would use the 70D over the 5D2 would be few, and the opportunity to effectively trade it for two nice, very practical L lenses made the decision easy.
Thanks to all for the advice, even the advice contrary to what I eventually did; it all helped.