Just a couple of weeks back, I wrote that I won’t be investing in a full frame camera in the immediate future. You can probably guess what happened by the title of this article, yup, that’s right, I spent big on full frame gear, $8,500 worth, including the 5D4 and the 6D2, three lenses, lighting and backdrops.
First, while in Best Buy, I impulse bought the Canon EOS 5D mkIV, 16-35mm f/4L, 24-105mm F/4L and 85mm F/1.8 USM prime lenses. the 5D4 came with a BG-E20 battery grip, which after testing it, I decided that it is something I won’t use, it makes the whole camera too bulky and heavy in my opinion, I’d rather carry a spare battery, and pop it in when the first one runs out, the 5D4 is already a chunky camera.
A few days later, I took the 5D4 and 16-35mm out to a real estate shoot, quickly realizing that it was not the best camera for real estate. Nothing to do with image quality, the quality of the photos were amazing, however, it’s not the most practical for getting into the corner of rooms to maximize the ultra-wide angle of the lens, I am unable to see the display or look into the viewfinder, so that’s a huge issue for me.
This is how I ended up buying the Canon EOS 6D mkII, which does have the articulating screen that I have grown to love in the Rebel T3i and EOS 80D. As I had spent $1,000 on the EF 16-35mm F/4L, I wanted to make use of it, and although it will work on my 80D, it won’t really be ultra wide angle anymore with the 1.6 crop factor. It’ll be more like 25mm, which is not anywhere near wide enough for real estate.
I used the 6D2 yesterday for a real estate shoot, and I like it’s smaller form factor, the articulating screen and the ability to shoot at ISO 800 with virtually no digital noise in the photo. ISO 800 on the 80D produced far too much noise for my liking, which means I had to shoot at ISO 400 maximum with a much slower shutter speed, which in all honesty is not a problem as I shoot HDR on a tripod with a 2-sec delay.
In addition to the cameras and lenses, we also invested in lighting and backdrops for portrait shoots. We bought two Neewer 660 bi-color LED panels, Neewer green screen backdrop kit, plus additional blue, black and white muslin backdrops and a further Neewer 700w softbox set for a softer lighting effect.
Most of these purchases are for my wife’s attempt at launching a photography career, I only need the EOS 6D mkII and EF 16-35mm F/4L for real estate. The plan is to do some free shoots for friends and family to build up a portfolio for her website when I get around to creating it. Right now, there is nothing to put on the website as she has only done two shoots and one of those I wouldn’t use for a portfolio website.
I am being supportive of my wife’s efforts, she has a lot to learn, but I’m confident she will get there quickly with practice. My wife isn’t very confident of her abilities, she had done a photography course back in the film days, and she was under the impression that those skills didn’t apply in digital photography. I explained that the exposure triangle has not changed since the dawn of photography. Although, I believe she has not retained that information from 20 years ago, so it’s like starting over.
If we can make our money back in 2018, I would call that a successful year, although it’s not essential to make the money back, it’s extra cash we had available, so it’s not do or die, but it would be nice to see maybe, a small profit at the end of 2018. Final note, who would have thought that my wife would be the one using the better camera? but, the better camera for real estate, is the 6D2, so it makes perfect sense.
