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The Official Camera Equipment Megathread

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Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
captive said:
I do too many prints for myself, friends and family to not get it calibrated. Color is pretty much dead on but i cant get luminescence right. Its really hard to get sunsets and sunrises just right.

@rentahmaster, i do have dual monitors.


Well the Eyeone is nice, lackluster driver support aside. My main monitor is an IPS panel with wide color gamut, so the Eyeone works well with it. The original Spyder doesn't do wide gamut very well, but I hear the Spyder3 is okay in that regard. I've never used the Spyder3, however.

Using the eyeone to doublecheck the calibration, I have a dE2000 of 0.59, which is pretty good.

As far as luminance is concerned, I find that checking the historgram to see what parts of your photo are clipping to black and white help. Lightroom shows you those values fairly easily (shortcut: 'J')

With the Eyeone you can set your LCD to a specific brightness - default for LCDs is 120. You could then see how your prints turn out when soft proofing by eye and then adjusting the calibrated brightness accordingly.


Lotsa user info here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...Ck&q=site:dpreview.com+display2&aq=f&aqi=&oq=
 

mrkgoo

Member
Ugh, Aperture 3 is so messy.

Crashes, refusing to launch. I finally imported my iPhoto library (referenced) after 24 hours of processing, and Aperture is slow, crashes when I try to do some things, and now I can't even launch it.
 

Chorazin

Member
mrkgoo said:
Ugh, Aperture 3 is so messy.

Crashes, refusing to launch. I finally imported my iPhoto library (referenced) after 24 hours of processing, and Aperture is slow, crashes when I try to do some things, and now I can't even launch it.

Reboot? I haven't had a single problem with Aperture on my Mac. Do you have at least 2 gigs of RAM? Maybe close some stuff in the background?
 

mattiewheels

And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
I had an old Russian 35mm a long tune ago, and I was really happy with the quality, especially with a telephoto lens.

So I know nothing about digital slr, but I think I'm ready to get something sort of equivalent to my old 35mm. I want a very basic slr, just something that can produce a 'film'-y image, and I do like Canon's smaller cameras and I'm familiar with their interface. What's a perfect starter SLR?
 

captive

Joe Six-Pack: posting for the common man
mrkgoo said:
Ugh, Aperture 3 is so messy.

Crashes, refusing to launch. I finally imported my iPhoto library (referenced) after 24 hours of processing, and Aperture is slow, crashes when I try to do some things, and now I can't even launch it.
i love lightroom. I think i've processed 10k images on it and its frozen once or twice.

Sucks you're having problems, hope you get it worked out.
 

Kawaii

Member
mrkgoo said:
What do you mean it didn't fit well? I had a 350D with a kit lens (unless the T1i is significantly bigger), and I put it face down into the bag...

Sorry it didn't work out. Crumpler has an entire range. 2 million dollar, 4 million dollar etc... I have a 2 million dollar, and 6 million, I think. If it was too small, consider the larger ones. Depends on what you want out of the bag.

Man, I feel bad for having you go astray. Sorry. :(

Anyway, I have Aperture now, and I'm on over my head I have no idea what's going on.
Dug up some old Raw files and played with them. I think I'm overcooking...

(I've posted these before, but not from RAW (I did JPEGS from camera).









Man I feel like such a nub. There's so much going on in Aperture. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do, how to organise, how to edit.

It's blazing fast though.

Can someone describe what it's doing conceptually? I have files sitting in projects, albums in those projects (are these like folders? can the same image occupy the project in multiple albums with only one master?).

And masters - these are like the originals, which I assume never get touched (how could they if they're raw, right?), and edits you make are over the top of it, but not baked in...When I export as jpegs, that's when it gets baked in, but jpegs are exported out of aperture? Man, so confused.

A small part of me wants to go running to the comfort of iPhoto...
What kind of lens did you use making these pictures? The colors are really vibrant!
 

mrkgoo

Member
Chorazin said:
Reboot? I haven't had a single problem with Aperture on my Mac. Do you have at least 2 gigs of RAM? Maybe close some stuff in the background?
4gb ram MacBook pro 2.4ghz. I don't what the trouble is. Slow hard drive? Too large an iPhoto library? I thought aperture was supposed to be fast.

Ok switched to 32-bit mode an the software at least launches.

Kawaii: I have a 17-55 f/2.8 is for those first three. And a 17-40f4 for that last one.
 

Chorazin

Member
mrkgoo said:
4gb ram MacBook pro 2.4ghz. I don't what the trouble is. Slow hard drive? Too large an iPhoto library? I thought aperture was supposed to be fast.

Ok switched to 32-bit mode an the software at least launches.

Kawaii: I have a 17-55 f/2.8 is for those first three. And a 17-40f4 for that last one.

Well, Aperture 3 is fast....er than Aperture 2, which was slow as hell.

My Aperture library is full of hundreds of RAW pics, so I doubt that is your problem. Hopefully they'll put out a patch soon, as I have read other complaints on the official Apple Aperture forums. Seems to mostly be a problem with people who imported from iPhoto, as previous Aperture libraries have been upgrading fine.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Seems like importing from iPhoto would be kinda intense on your computer, especially a laptop. I would think that there's a lot of things both programs have to take into account since they both sorta run on a database organizational system?


Maybe you should just forget the iPhoto import and just use Aperture for everything you take from now on?
 

Prez

Member
Can anyone help me out? I'm thinking of buying a Canon 300D with a small flash problem. The flash works but you can only open it manually. This means that, when normally the flash would come out, it flashes while still closed. So you'd have to open it manually everytime.

Either way, I only intend to take architecture and field shots during the day, so I wouldn't need the flash. It seems like a good way to get an SLR for dirt cheap (€100 for the body).

I would then add an EF 28-80mm 1:3.5-5.6 lens for €25. That's €125 total. The cheapest set after that is at least twice that amount!

Is it good to start out? I'm not going to use this a lot. I'm low on money and still have other expenses to make, so it seems good to me.
 

Chorazin

Member
Stabbie said:
Can anyone help me out? I'm thinking of buying a Canon 300D with a small flash problem. The flash works but you can only open it manually. This means that, when normally the flash would come out, it flashes while still closed. So you'd have to open it manually everytime.

Either way, I only intend to take architecture and field shots during the day, so I wouldn't need the flash. It seems like a good way to get an SLR for dirt cheap (€100 for the body).

I would then add an EF 28-80mm 1:3.5-5.6 lens for €25. That's €125 total. The cheapest set after that is at least twice that amount!

Is it good to start out? I'm not going to use this a lot. I'm low on money and still have other expenses to make, so it seems good to me.

As long as everything but the flash works just fine, sounds like a hell of a deal!
 

Prez

Member
Chorazin said:
As long as everything but the flash works just fine, sounds like a hell of a deal!

Great :D

In situations where I need the flash I can just open it manually. I assume it doesn't always need to flash when the flash is open?

Repair costs are estimated at €50, but there's a good chance a relative of mine knows someone who can do it for free!
 
zhenming said:
manual focus lens bokeh is sooooo nice... :D
What is it about manual focus that effects bokeh? I thought it was all a function aperture size and shape (i.e. rounded blades,) with a dash of lens length and distance to subject.
 

mrkgoo

Member
I have a question about the embedded jpeg that you see on the back of the camera when you take a RAW photo. I assume that JPEG uses the picture styles settings set on the camera, but of course the RAW is, well, raw. Anyway, when imported into Aperture 3, I notice that it 'processes' the embedded JPEGs. So does it show that jpeg in the browser? Otherwise, what is it processing?
 

Chorazin

Member
mrkgoo said:
I have a question about the embedded jpeg that you see on the back of the camera when you take a RAW photo. I assume that JPEG uses the picture styles settings set on the camera, but of course the RAW is, well, raw. Anyway, when imported into Aperture 3, I notice that it 'processes' the embedded JPEGs. So does it show that jpeg in the browser? Otherwise, what is it processing?

Do you have it set to RAW+jpeg? Maybe that's the reason. It doesn't do anything like that with my Nikon set to just RAW.
 

mrkgoo

Member
Chorazin said:
Do you have it set to RAW+jpeg? Maybe that's the reason. It doesn't do anything like that with my Nikon set to just RAW.


No. It shows up in the Activity window. I understand all cameras capture raw with an embedded small jpeg for viewing on the LCD. I was just curious as to what Aperture was doing with that.
 

mrkgoo

Member
Ok after an entire weekend struggling to get Aperture 3 to going, I think I finally have it.

It's taken all weekend to import (reference) my iPhoto library, but it has pretty much carried over most things. I lost a lot of location data (anything where I attached location data to prior to iPhoto 09 seems to have gone AWOL), and have been going through and retagging. Also, a lot of images seems to have lost their orientation flag. Movies from one of my cameras no longer play.

I don't use a rating system, but thankfully all my 'hidden' photos have transferred over as 'rejected'. I will at least use the rejected to keep certain photos hidden.

Tagging feels very UN-robust. When I was first trying, just editing my keywords list would cause Aperture to crash.

Over Aperture 3 has a lot of features, but there are a lot of little quirks that have yet to be ironed out. Somethings I feel iPhoto does a lot better. For example, double-clicking to got to a large screen mode has the image enlarge from the thumb, which I think is a useful thing to go back and forth. Faces implementation seems to have imported over, but I don't think the actual location of the face within the frame has come over in some photos (the face view has the box around no face, despite the face being in the actual photo elsewhere)

Other things are just little things. Like when you have the control bar up and your keywords are ready to go as quick buttons, holding shift and clicking removes keywords, but there's no indication that it will do this - it would be nice for a little '-' to appear on each button to give you a visual cue that it will remove the key word.

I'm still figuring out how to organise the main library. Obviously, I'm trying to do it 'the iPhoto way'. Each event in iPhoto was imported as a project, but folders for albums were within the iPhoto Library folder. I dragged them out, and they kind of operate the same - smart albums default to only checking their own folder, so it seems like you're supposed to make albums within each project.

My current organisation has the main library, with folders for various categories (for example "Favourites", or "People", or "themes", and within those I have albums that are made up of smart albums from keywords, or other.

I'm still probably going to have to figure out how I'm going to do all of this. Aperture is very slow when doing certain things - for example, if I try to rename my "imported events" THe folder that contains the 1000 projects imported from iPhoto), it will lock up Aperture. If I force quit, it will even lock up during the next few launches. I assume it's going through editing the data base to reflect the change on all the projects and just restarts when I launch. This is annoying however, as I accidentally moved it to one of my other folders and had to put up with lockups during startup, shutdown etc, and then all over again when I moved it back.

Editing features are really good. Obviously, I'm over my head. I just don't know the first things about editing images. Previously, I got extremely comfortable with the limits of my camera - knowing what the picture styles do, understanding what the image on the LCD was likely to translate to on my computer, the effect of lighting and so on. RAW latitude is like SO much power that I had no access to before, and I have a feeling I may get lazy and learn to rely on the latitude. At any rate, I took a few random pictures and even then felt I had to edit them only very slightly, although I did appreciate many of the tools.

Is there any good resource for learning how to process images? For example, pre-editing the RAW processing (the RAW processor) vs. editing the values as you output (I notice there are sliders for both). I feel like a newbie all over again. Like I said, part of me wants to just go back to JPEG - as RAW seems to be overkill for 90% of my shots.
 
Wow Aperature 3 sounds like a pain to setup. I was going to look into it but not so sure now. Are the problems you're having only because you're trying to migrate from iPhoto? If that's the case, that's just further reason why I choose not to use software like that to organize my stuff and why I like to structure and organize my photos myself. It makes it universal in away rather than being tied down. Or is Aperature going to hate my organization structure and want to reorder it?
 

mrkgoo

Member
Marty Chinn said:
Wow Aperature 3 sounds like a pain to setup. I was going to look into it but not so sure now. Are the problems you're having only because you're trying to migrate from iPhoto? If that's the case, that's just further reason why I choose not to use software like that to organize my stuff and why I like to structure and organize my photos myself. It makes it universal in away rather than being tied down. Or is Aperature going to hate my organization structure and want to reorder it?
It has teething problems, for sure.

Mostly because I'm 'tied down' to the iPhoto way of organising. Not a fault with iPhoto - just that it was so good, I want to continue using it like that. Aperture is actually surprisingly iPhoto like. I'm not sure what Aperture 1 and 2 were like, but the organisation in panels and stuff is nearly identical. It really is like a 'super' iphoto.

I think the problems I'm having are two-fold - importing from a ridiculously bloated iPhoto library (the thumbnails in Aperture amount os something like 25GB), and also that Aperture 3 is not perfectly stable or optimised. I've seen this with iPhoto too, but after some point releases it's typically fixed or improved in this regard. So I'm hoping.

As for organising philosophy, I think partially it's my wanting a huge central library that the software can file away into viewable albums. You see, like iTunes, I like the idea of not having to deal with the actually files themselves. Problem is, with photos, there's a huge performance decrease when handling 100's of thousands of images. Photos are user-created content, so they can't easily be automatically tagged like MP3s can be (in terms of content like what's the picture of etc.). Management is a much bigger deal than music, at least for me.

Anyway, I see myself eventually having to export my photos and keeping separate libraries. I don't want to do that, but it's nearly impossible to keep so many photos organised while running smoothly.

I've also noticed that Time Machine does not back up the thumbnails directory in Aperture Library (or the iPod Photo cache). It's obvious why, because these things constantly change - I remember some parts of iPhoto were handled like that and Time Machine would try to back up the entire library, with each change (which was over 100GB for me). Even now, if I pretty much just make small adjustments in iPhoto, it will back up all the main library parts, which is still a few GB. It's nothing super bad, I just have to remember that if I restore from time machine, it will have to rebuild the 30,000 thumbnails (took a day or so).
 

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
mrkgoo - i'm shocked you haven't tried the Lightroom 3 open beta. i'm interested in seeing an unbiased comparison between the two, but haven't found anything yet.

so far i'm loving LR3's organizational setup and most of its post-processing tools. i wish they'd include a limited layer functionality for masking and such, but it's good for 90% of what i need to correct. also, the chroma noise reduction filter is pretty amazing. with the NR on my camera turned off (and shooting in RAW), the filter gives the noise the appearance of subtle film grain.
 

mrkgoo

Member
scorcho said:
mrkgoo - i'm shocked you haven't tried the Lightroom 3 open beta. i'm interested in seeing an unbiased comparison between the two, but haven't found anything yet.

so far i'm loving LR3's organizational setup and most of its post-processing tools. i wish they'd include a limited layer functionality for masking and such, but it's good for 90% of what i need to correct. also, the chroma noise reduction filter is pretty amazing. with the NR on my camera turned off (and shooting in RAW), the filter gives the noise the appearance of subtle film grain.

Ugh, I had a long reply written out and Safari crashed on me. I wonder if my hard drive upgrade has anything to do with my issues (I did a surface scan, so the actual hardware is fine).

Anyway, I was trying to say that I'm not unbiased. I'm an Apple guy and just feel that they know their own hardware/software roadmap and thus can can better cater to my wants of a 'it just works' future if I stay within the environment.

I'm actually surprised at how much the import got right from iPhoto to Aperture. I was expecting to have things broken all of the place, but referencing in Aperture seems pretty robust. There are more options for recovering lost references too, it seems, so Marty, you can always just organise how you want and have aperture just read that.

I haven't tried LightRoom 3. I don't go for betas, generally. Nothing wrong with Light Room, but I've only tried it back in it's first Beta before I even knew what RAW was. My understanding is that it has really good Photoshop integration (although I don't have photoshop), and since Adobe have a really good legacy for editing, it probably has very robust features for that. I think more people are leaning towards lightroom as it's probably more of 'editing' geared piece of software. Like I said, though, organisation is key to me. I'm veer new to the editing thing, so I'm not sure how much I need editing tools and extensive plug-in architecture.

What kind of organisation is capable in light room?

I also like the way Aperture 3 uses Places. It's a bit better implemented than in iPhoto.

dn1q9s.jpg


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34f1vdk.jpg
 

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
mrkgoo said:
What kind of organisation is capable in light room?
judging by the Ap3 pictures it looks about the same - you can flag and rate pictures at the same time, mark photos as rejected and filter by whatever criteria you want. LR3 seems to move away from the folder/desktop UI and emphasize keywords, filters and smart collections to organize the photos.

aside from that LR3 will also let you stack photos so that, say, you can group specific sets of shots (like of a specific building/location or person, etc.).

aside from that i've been very pleased with how keyboard-driven Adobe's made the interface. you can do just about everything without ever using your mouse, and a good number of shortcuts don't even need modifier keys.
 

mrkgoo

Member
scorcho said:
judging by the Ap3 pictures it looks about the same - you can flag and rate pictures at the same time, mark photos as rejected and filter by whatever criteria you want. LR3 seems to move away from the folder/desktop UI and emphasize keywords, filters and smart collections to organize the photos.

aside from that LR3 will also let you stack photos so that, say, you can group specific sets of shots (like of a specific building/location or person, etc.).

aside from that i've been very pleased with how keyboard-driven Adobe's made the interface. you can do just about everything without ever using your mouse, and a good number of shortcuts don't even need modifier keys.

Sounds like both pieces of software are heading in the same direction.

There are stacks in Aperture 3 also, and I was surprised at a lot of non-modifier shortcuts (Z for Zoom, D for control bar, ` for loupe, T for overlay metadata window.

Makes a lot of sense.

I guess one advantage is that Aperture 3 is only U$69 for an Academic version which I'm using. It's cheap enough (relatively speaking) to get into.
 

vitaminwateryum

corporate swill
I'm looking to buy a new video camera for around $300-$400, anyone have any suggestions?

I've been looking at this. Can't really seem to find anything else that isn't in the $1000+ range.
 
Ok mrkgoo, I shelled out for the 4 million dollar bag now =) Hopefully this one will be just right. I figure I didn't want to buy a ton of bags, and I think I'll most likely only want to have about two lenses so this will hopefully cover my bag needs for quite some time.
 

mrkgoo

Member
Marty Chinn said:
Ok mrkgoo, I shelled out for the 4 million dollar bag now =) Hopefully this one will be just right. I figure I didn't want to buy a ton of bags, and I think I'll most likely only want to have about two lenses so this will hopefully cover my bag needs for quite some time.
Good luck :). Did you look it up to see what peole were doing with it?
 
mrkgoo said:
Good luck :). Did you look it up to see what peole were doing with it?

I saw this post on ebags.com:

"Enough space for one Canon T1i body and two lenses. Good overall quality."

So hopefully it'll all work out good. My only concern with the 4 million was it maybe being too big because I wanted something that was light and compact to make it easy to carry around. So I'm taking a dive and hoping for the best =) Thanks for the advice though cuz I really like how the bag looks. It was pretty much what I had in mind. The three million seemed like it might work but then I thought about future usage and it just seemed silly to spend $50 on a bag only to need another bag down the line.
 

mrkgoo

Member
Marty Chinn said:
I saw this post on ebags.com:



So hopefully it'll all work out good. My only concern with the 4 million was it maybe being too big because I wanted something that was light and compact to make it easy to carry around. So I'm taking a dive and hoping for the best =) Thanks for the advice though cuz I really like how the bag looks. It was pretty much what I had in mind. The three million seemed like it might work but then I thought about future usage and it just seemed silly to spend $50 on a bag only to need another bag down the line.
If youre at all serious about photography, bags are something you can't get enough of! You a bag that can hold all your gear, a ba that can hold just the camera, a bag for those wet days, a bag that you van bakpack with etc. :p

at last count I have 4.5 camera bags (.5 ecausr a made a 5th bag into a camera bag by using the padding of another).

That said, I have 3 slrs, so I guess they need to go somewhere.
 
mrkgoo said:
If youre at all serious about photography, bags are something you can't get enough of! You a bag that can hold all your gear, a ba that can hold just the camera, a bag for those wet days, a bag that you van bakpack with etc. :p

at last count I have 4.5 camera bags (.5 ecausr a made a 5th bag into a camera bag by using the padding of another).

That said, I have 3 slrs, so I guess they need to go somewhere.

Heh I'm not quite serious yet, and I'm not sure how serious I'll get, but I wanted something where I could take better pictures than what I had with my point and shoot. It's more about taking quality pictures of kids whenever I have them. I just need to learn how to take better pics =)

That said, as much as I'm willing to drop some money into another lense or two, I do have a higher priority of building a home theater. I've currently more or less maxed out what I can do with a family room setup so the next step there is a dedicated room with a projector so I can't see myself spending several grand towards photography when that couple grand could go towards that.
 

captive

Joe Six-Pack: posting for the common man
Squirrel Killer said:
What is it about manual focus that effects bokeh? I thought it was all a function aperture size and shape (i.e. rounded blades,) with a dash of lens length and distance to subject.
I would also like to know this.

I'm thinking they just mean that that particular lens is manual focus only?

Dunno, I get fantastic bokeh autofocused from my 150mm f2.0, even with a 2x TeleConverter attached.
 

mattiewheels

And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
I had an old Russian 35mm a long tune ago, and I was really happy with the quality, especially with a telephoto lens.

So I know nothing about digital slr, but I think I'm ready to get something sort of equivalent to my old 35mm. I want a very basic slr, just something that can produce a 'film'-y image, and I do like Canon's smaller cameras and I'm familiar with their interface. What's a perfect starter SLR?
 

mrkgoo

Member
mattiewheels said:
I had an old Russian 35mm a long tune ago, and I was really happy with the quality, especially with a telephoto lens.

So I know nothing about digital slr, but I think I'm ready to get something sort of equivalent to my old 35mm. I want a very basic slr, just something that can produce a 'film'-y image, and I do like Canon's smaller cameras and I'm familiar with their interface. What's a perfect starter SLR?
They're all good. Just go with the ergonomics or system you feel most comfortable with. Do note, however, that the entry and mid levels cameras have smaller sensors than 35mm. This will affect how your image compares with film.
 

brerwolfe

Member
i'm so excited, my Canon 7D will arrive today!! i'm upgrading from a nikon D40x, so this is going to be SERIOUS.

my wife raised $900 from friends and family to go toward this purchase for my birthday last tuesday. that, plus the money i made working the superbowl, allowed me to snag this sucker. i'm so pumped!
 

Chorazin

Member
brerwolfe said:
i'm so excited, my Canon 7D will arrive today!! i'm upgrading from a nikon D40x, so this is going to be SERIOUS.

my wife raised $900 from friends and family to go toward this purchase for my birthday last tuesday. that, plus the money i made working the superbowl, allowed me to snag this sucker. i'm so pumped!

I hope you're giving with wife the d40x so she can shoot with you! :p

I'm currently selling a few things to try and save money to upgrade to the Nikon D90 by the first weekend of May. (I really hope Nikon announces a D90 successor at PMA next week so they go on clearance by then....) I love my D40 but I want higher ISO for low light, the ability to use older AF lenses, and a fully functional battery grip option as I like to do a lot of vertical shooting. I also do a lot of cropping when editing so the extra image size wouldn't hurt!
 

brerwolfe

Member
Chorazin said:
I hope you're giving with wife the d40x so she can shoot with you! :p

ha! my wife loves the idea of DSLR, but doesn't have the patience to learn how to use them. those little nikon coolpix cams are right up her alley.

also, boxes 1 and 2 just showed up!!

22039_310790708258_844168258_3347074_1058648_n.jpg


still waiting on the CF card, extra battery and battery grip. they should be here in the next hour or so....

after i get the money from the Super Bowl i'm going to get the 70-200 L-series lens to go along with this. i also need to order a proper bag ad flash...
 

Chorazin

Member
brerwolfe said:
ha! my wife loves the idea of DSLR, but doesn't have the patience to learn how to use them. those little nikon coolpix cams are right up her alley.

also, boxes 1 and 2 just showed up!!



still waiting on the CF card, extra battery and battery grip. they should be here in the next hour or so....

after i get the money from the Super Bowl i'm going to get the 70-200 L-series lens to go along with this. i also need to order a proper bag ad flash...

She doesn't know what she's missing! Oh well, the D40/x series are still great cams, so you should get a decent price on eBay, unless you're planning to carry both with you. I wish I would have found a D40x when I bought my D40, but they were rare around that time.

I'm not a Canon guy but I know it's supposed to be amazing. Can't wait to see what you do with it!
 

tino

Banned
Chorazin said:
I hope you're giving with wife the d40x so she can shoot with you! :p

I'm currently selling a few things to try and save money to upgrade to the Nikon D90 by the first weekend of May. (I really hope Nikon announces a D90 successor at PMA next week so they go on clearance by then....) I love my D40 but I want higher ISO for low light, the ability to use older AF lenses, and a fully functional battery grip option as I like to do a lot of vertical shooting. I also do a lot of cropping when editing so the extra image size wouldn't hurt!

Both d80 and d90 were announced in august, so the "d100" (D7000) probably will come out in august. You may see in d70Os in PMA though.
 

brerwolfe

Member
i could sell the d40x to you if you're interested. i haven't been able to find any on ebay to gauge success, i was just going to throw it on craigslist for like $500-600 with the 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 and the 55-200 f/4-5.6..............

still waiting on the cf card, so i can't take any pics yet.. but the first thing i noticed (coming from nikon) is that the ergonomics are all reversed. the lens mounts with a different rotation, and the zoom rotation is reversed as well. and there are sooo many new buttons and what-have-you's on the 7D. it's almost intimidating, but i'm looking forward to learning it.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
brerwolfebut said:
the first thing i noticed (coming from nikon) is that the ergonomics are all reversed. the lens mounts with a different rotation, and the zoom rotation is reversed as well. and there are sooo many new buttons and what-have-you's on the 7D. it's almost intimidating, but i'm looking forward to learning it.
Yeah, it can be a little confusing. There was a while when I was using both brands simultaneously and that messed me up a lot. I got used to it, though. You will too.

I sold the Canon stuff so I don't have that problem anymore.

Don't worry about all the additional buttons. I time, you will come to appreciate how much time it saves you since you don't have to navigate a bunch of menus just to change one simple setting.
 

cbox

Member
Hi guys, how is tamron as a lens maker. I'm looking to grab a nice 17-XXX for my 7d as I'm growing tired of using my old rebel lens kit with it.

The one I was looking at was about 1/3 the price of the canon counterpart. 600 vs 1800 dollars CAD.
 

mrkgoo

Member
brerwolfe said:
i could sell the d40x to you if you're interested. i haven't been able to find any on ebay to gauge success, i was just going to throw it on craigslist for like $500-600 with the 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 and the 55-200 f/4-5.6..............

still waiting on the cf card, so i can't take any pics yet.. but the first thing i noticed (coming from nikon) is that the ergonomics are all reversed. the lens mounts with a different rotation, and the zoom rotation is reversed as well. and there are sooo many new buttons and what-have-you's on the 7D. it's almost intimidating, but i'm looking forward to learning it.

I've heard the Nikon's ergonomics as being 'better', but it's likely just a preference thing. I've always been a Canon shooter (Canon 350D, 40D, and 7D), and when I picked up a Nikon, I found it all weird as well. I'm sure you'll adjust.

The 7D is a great camera. Don't hesitate to ask any questions or even PM me if you want help.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
mrkgoo said:
I've heard the Nikon's ergonomics as being 'better', but it's likely just a preference thing.
Yeah, the whole "Nikon feels better" thing seems a bit over exaggerated to me. I didn't really feel that way. The only observable thing that happened was that I got rough callous-like patches of skin on my thumbs more often when using a Canon 5D, but that was probably due to the fact that I used them more than the Nikons.
 

brerwolfe

Member
mrkgoo said:
The 7D is a great camera. Don't hesitate to ask any questions or even PM me if you want help.

i appreciate it, i'll be sure to come here first! i made you a contact on flickr, also, so i could see what you were doing settings-wise and whatnot. i'm hoping to get this figured out quick, and looking forward to some great pictures.
 

Fireye

Member
I've been looking at picking up a "wide" lens, since I enjoy shooting architecture. I have a Digital Rebel XS (1000d) w/ 18-55 USM IS kit lens at the moment. I've been looking at the 24mm and the 28mm canon lenses, but from what I've been reading, they're really no sharper than the kit lens at the same focal length. Is there another cost-effective (<$4-500) wide angle lens I can use with my APS-C camera, that's better than the kit lens?
 

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
Fireye said:
I've been looking at picking up a "wide" lens, since I enjoy shooting architecture. I have a Digital Rebel XS (1000d) w/ 18-55 USM IS kit lens at the moment. I've been looking at the 24mm and the 28mm canon lenses, but from what I've been reading, they're really no sharper than the kit lens at the same focal length. Is there another cost-effective (<$4-500) wide angle lens I can use with my APS-C camera, that's better than the kit lens?
look up the Sigma 10mm-20mm. It can be had for a hair under $500 new
 

Chorazin

Member
brerwolfe said:
i could sell the d40x to you if you're interested. i haven't been able to find any on ebay to gauge success, i was just going to throw it on craigslist for like $500-600 with the 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 and the 55-200 f/4-5.6...............

Nah, I'm trying to save up for a D90, but I appreciate the offer. $500 sounds about right for the whole package, you can get some sweet Canon lenses and a good bag with that.

If you put it on eBay, make sure to put up the Super Bowl pics and sell up that you used the camera there, sports nuts might pay extra. :)
 

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
Fireye said:
I've been looking at picking up a "wide" lens, since I enjoy shooting architecture. I have a Digital Rebel XS (1000d) w/ 18-55 USM IS kit lens at the moment. I've been looking at the 24mm and the 28mm canon lenses, but from what I've been reading, they're really no sharper than the kit lens at the same focal length. Is there another cost-effective (<$4-500) wide angle lens I can use with my APS-C camera, that's better than the kit lens?

There's the Sigma 30 f/1.4 (at around $450). Its supposed to be nearly as good as Canons 35L but its only usable on an APS-C camera.

As far as the Canon offerings, I've read and seen good things from the 28mm but the only real advantage you would be getting from it over the kit lens is a 1 1/2 stop larger aperture. Also, I don't know first hand but I would think that it may be sharper than a kit lens at f/2.8 (being that its able to stop down). Things would normalize at f/4-f/5.6.

Here are some links to user samples

Canon 28/1.8
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=141692

Sigma 30/1.4
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=141274

If you don't need the speed from larger apertures, I would get what Scorcho suggested. That or the Tokina or Canon offerings (the Tokina is actually the fastest of the bunch at f/2.8 constant aperture).
 
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