www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Prompted by another post, I'd like members' opinions on the Canon 5D versus Canon 20D for butterfly photography.

The 5D is considerably more expensive than the 20D, but has a full-frame sensor, and a higher resolution. However, this means that you'd lose the 1.6 magnification you'd get with a 20D.

I guess photos would have a higher resolution with the 5D, but you'd need to get closer to the subject - assuming the same lens as the 20D.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

Jon.

Hi Jon.

i went from a 10d to a 5d so i can only compare it with that.

but in terms of lens choice and handling the 10 and 20 are similar except that the 10d had a smaller buffer that bogged things down at times.

like i said in another post i felt the 180mm lens was sometimes too long on my 10d camera (for me anyway). From reading some of Pete's posts he seems to like his 100mm macro and i think he uses a 20d???

The 180mm lens on the 5d seems just right and i would guess that the sigma 150mm would be good too.

in terms of differences in the cameras there are looooads of comparative reviews out there

but for me the nice things are

1 large viewfinder. makes focusing a lot easier
2 huge buffer. combined with a 100x CF card or faster it should rarely bog down
3 huge lcd screen on back, great for previews and histograms, plus the bling factor
4 iso settings can be set in small increments
5 not as noisy as the 10d

things i don't like about the 5d

need large CF cards if shooting in raw mode
the little rubber flaps on the side are very hard to open!!!
pointless direct print button
accessories for canon cameras are a ripoff

having said all that if the 5d had not come out i would have been perfectly happy carrying on with the 10d

Cheers, mark

Thanks Mark. I have looked at the web but I think your summary is the only one I've (now) seen that focuses (no pun intended) on photographing leps!

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Regards

Jon.

I agree - this is a nice summary and I'm in the same dilemma myself. I currently use a Canon 10D with a Sigma 105mm macro lens.

But it sounds like it's not just the upgrade to a 5D that needs to be considered, but also an upgrade to the lens (which makes a lot of sense)

Better start saving my pennies. By the time I can afford the upgrade there'll be a new model out

Cheers,

- Pete

I really don't know what the 100mm lens would be like a full frame camera for butterflies, perhaps backgrounds will look a little different due to the wider field of view. i do know that when i got the 5d all of my lenses seemed alot wider - especially the 50mm which now seems really wide compared to what it used to be!!!

Perhaps you will be just fine with the 100mm macro - as with most things its personal preference

As for saving pennies - wait a year for the next one to come out which will proably be cheaper and certainly better