Hi,
This'll be my first post on this forum ;-)
I'm a fairly young (22) finnish photographer running my own company for the last 2 years or so. I do studio, product and outdoor shoots on 2 10D:s and 16-35 2.8, 70-200 IS 2.8 and 50 1.4 glass. In addition, I have some manual optics (Peleng fisheye, Rodenstock TV and XR heligons etc, Rubinar teles).
There has been lots of discussion over when the optics surpass the sensor resolution and vice versa. I've been happy with the L quality glass except for those occasions where the 10D af sensor hasn't been sensitive enough (I've done the calibration of the bodies with the L glasses), the focus is sometimes a little off to either side. I've tried out various 3rd party optics with adapters and noticed that the Rodenstock glasses (especially 64mm XR-heligon f0,95 and 50mm f0,75) have superb quality although it's sometimes hard to see because of the incredibly shallow dof and the reason they can only be used as macros without mirror lockup.
EOS dslrs are not the only cameras I use and not the only ones i'm going to stick with (although they are great as workhorses), and although L glass have 10 year service, I'm willing to invest in the future and to 100% manual glasses. I'm hoping to find some that would fit with adapters to the EOS cameras, my MF (rz67) and possibly a linhof which i have acces to (practicing lf photogrpahy with it).
At the moment my main priority would be finding quality primes to use with the eos dslrs (I'll soon be updating to 5D because 10D buffer has got me into trouble in some shoots requiring speed and 5D features seem like THE 10D i've been waiting for ever since i got into the dslr world - mainly because of getting back to good viewfinders).
Can anyone list primes with good max aperture (preferably 1.4-2.
that would suit dslr use? My main requirement is surpassing the sensor resolution on 5D (Afaik the L series lens aren't doing good enough on ff sensors). I've been thinking of zeiss/voigtländer/rodenstock/scneider lenses, most likely rodenstocks because I've already seen their absolutely stunning quality. What 14-180mm 1.4-2.8 primes would you suggest in terms of resolution and flare resistance (I'll be shooting a lot outdoors)?
Forgive me if my request seems naive but the longer I've been shooting (3 years as a hobby and the next 3 as a profession+hobby) the more I've noticed that the mechanical simple designs often surpass digital competitors. I've had some electrical problems with the ef series glass and had the 10D shutter release microchips replaced etc.... Though i'll be living with the EF mount for a long time, I want to invest for photographic equipment which would last for my own kids - and I know that a piece of metal and quality glass doesn't lose its value the same way as metal+glass+electronics does. I hate the fact that EF lenses don't have manual aperture ring....
I'll be posting more (stupid) questions later on... This feels like a perfect place to ask from the more talented :-)
Thanks!