There's a highway in eastern California - US 395 - that may well be my favorite highway in California. I used to take an annual trip with Caltech freshmen up and down this highway to Mammoth Lakes (and, by way of Tioga Pass, Yosemite). Each time I go, there's something new and amazing that I haven't seen before.
Turns out Joanne hadn't gone down US 395 before, so on this vacation we drove across California to Lake Tahoe, then took 395 down to LA for our 10th reunion at Caltech. Even on this trip there were places I'd never been (separate posts to follow) - Bonsai Rock, Bodie ("ghost") town, Mono Lake, and the bristlecone pines. In the meantime, here are some photos from just the drive and various incidental landmarks and views that we happened to drive by.
This trip was also an opportunity to try out the Canon 6D, which is now Canon's lowest end full frame SLR. We've been chugging along with a 40D and a Rebel XT for many years, and I was wondering what an upgrade might be like, so I rented the 6D from BorrowLenses.com. The advantages boil down to full frame, and better noise performance (and hence higher peak ISO).
Full frame is interesting. For starters, it really hammers home why L lenses have the ranges they have. On a crop frame, the 24-105/4L has nice middle range and is reasonably long, but 24 mm is in this weird middle ground where it's not especially wide, which is why we have a Tokina 12-24. On a full frame, this really does become a one-size-fits-nearly-everything lens. It could be really useful to have a 6D as primary and a 40D as backup, to take advantage of this. Also, for any given composition, full frame gives you more bokeh - to achieve any given composition is it appears in the viewfinder, you have to use a 1.6x longer focal length, and since bokeh is somewhat proportional to focal length, the images look like they have more bokeh.
ISO performance turns out to be less of a winner than I thought. The main use I envisioned was astrophotos, but the main limiting factor in the landscape/starscape photos I want to take is the difference in exposure between the foreground and the sky, and, when the moon is out, signal/background for stars. Using higher ISO doesn't solve either of these problems. The other application could be using available light in low-light environments, e.g., indoors. But the main problem with indoor lighting is not that it's dim; it's that the light is usually a nasty color, and has an unintersting quality. ISO wouldn't help that either.
So maybe the cost/benefit does not favor buying a 6D. For now, I think it would be better to rent a 6D when the occasion demands.
