[joefish]

Originally Posted by jdepould

I don't think getting rid of the 70-200 would be a good idea, it was popular before crop sensor came along, and it'll be popular forever...It's really a matter of what you shoot and how you shoot it.

Oops, I didn't mean I would get rid of this lens, just that I would want something to give me that extra bit of range! The 70-200 is fantastic, and it's advantages outweigh any disadvantages this lens has, for sure. Whether or not full frame is the right thing to be aiming for in the long term does depend on what one shoots, you're right about this. In a lot of ways that's why I started this thread, to help me figure this out somewhat.

Originally Posted by Saralonde

Perhaps if you're thinking about moving to a full frame camera at some later date, you could start by slowly adding to your equipment lenses that will work on either camera. You can use them now on your 40D - an excellent camera, BTW - and when you finally make the jump to full frame, you'll be ready. Besides by then they'll have an even better full frame camera out!
Bodies change far more rapidly than a good lens.

This is true. As I said at the end of my first post, there's no way I have the money for any of this at the moment, and so the only way this will happen is one lens at the time. The question will become "which lens next"; the body will not doubt be the last thing.

Originally Posted by jblaschke

Settle down, buckaroo. I think you've got one full lens to buy, the rest you can work around. Secondhand EF 28-135mm IS USM lenses can be had for around $400. It's a nice lens--not an L of course, but better than your 18-55. On a full-frame, you don't give up any frame on the wide-angle end. Bonus.

I wouldn't replace the 50 with the 85 until you've had a chance to try it out on the FF body for a while. You might actually prefer the new framing. The difference between the two is significant, but not huge. That's one I'd hold off on.

As for the 70-200L, yeah, you lose a good bit of reach, but that's a really nice lens. A lot of people love it for FF bodies. Instead of replacing it outright, the first thing I'd do is look into getting one of Canon's extenders--they make the EF 2x II and also the EF 1.4x II, either of which might well satisfy your needs. Buying a 1.4x would almost give you the same reach as you had before, whereas the 2x would give you more. If you don't like them, you could sell them second-hand and get most of your money back. Either way, it's a whole lot cheaper than rushing out and buying that 300L.

Ooh, there's a lot to reply to here. I have to shoot off to work in just a moment, so running out of time to craft my reply. Will definitely come back to all of these comments (extender, 50mm, 28-135) as soon as I can!

Originally Posted by Farkled

One other thing to consider in the the move to FF is computer horsepower. If your RAW file sizes double or triple, you'll be wanting at least duo-core and probably quad-core processors with beaucoup RAM running at high clock rates. Disk space requirements will shoot up.

I just did an 8 shot (all RAW) pano stitch in CS3 on my P4 @ 2.6ghz with 1 GB RAM - took it a couple hours. The resulting PSD file was 756 MB in size.

Ouch! Yeah, I do have a low-end dual core already. To be honest I don't do tons of post-processing stuff. I use Bibble for a few things, but as I shoot mostly events (which means lots of photos), heavy post-processing on individual photos isn't an option usually for reasons of time.

Thanks for your replies everyone, I've got a few more thoughts to add when I have some time