Hi Malzz,

I have the 550D/T2i and the EF 85mm f/1.8 USM is fantastic on this camera IMHO.

Okay, just going to provide my basic 2 cents... (I agree with Drum)
A lens is largely dependent on your own style, budget, and what, when, where and why the subject is being photographed.
So there are many reasons why a lens maybe someones trash, but anothers treasure.

The 85mm lens on a 1.6x cropped body of the 550D/T2i makes 136mm. According to the Canon website closest focusing distance id 2.8 ft and yes, if your in a really tight space your going to have a challenge and sometimes I used a Kenko extension tube 12mm or just changed the lens, that is one of the beautiful things about a DSLR to me.

Also the EF 40mm f/2.8 STM was recently on sale 20% to 30% off on Canon's online store the refurbished lens was only $127 (Out of stock now)
If you bought these to lenses together you may just have a winning pair IMHO.

I also have the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM Lens and Tamron AF 17-50mm F/2.8 XR Di-II LD SP Aspherical (IF) Zoom Lens, but I have not used them in a year and I'll likely sell them. Also they can't be used on a full-frame camera, so that maybe a consideration if your thinking about upgrading the camera body someday. I may purchase the Sigma 50mm f1.4

When I first got the 550D/T2i I used the EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM almost all the time until I purchased the EF 85mm f/1.8 USM. I don't use the 28-135mm as much now mostly because I'm using L lenses on the 5D mark ii, but I love the EF 85mm f/1.8 USM even more now. The EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM is also a good backup lens when traveling if I have an lens issue with one of my other lenses and unable to use it until it's repaired the good ole EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM is there for me. The EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM will cover a wider range than the two primes 28mm and 85mm as well as take great captures, has IS and most EF Canon lenses in this focal range will not and it's $245 on Keh.com website (used in excellent + grade) and the EF 50mm f/1.8 II same grade cost $94, so this combo may also work too. The EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM can be your all purpose walk-around lens and the EF 50mm f/1.8 II can help in low light indoor settings.

Happy shooting and have fun with your new 550D/T2i

rihanishtiaq said:

And to me, I personally don't think Any camera body will change the way I take photos

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For me, a camera with a really good af system would - like the 5d3, or even better 1dx ... unfortunately way out of my budget. As for the other lesser cameras, the differences won't matter that much.

Never knew that spot AF was slower in low light. Thanks for the tip!

Very neat but Canon really beat them to it in a way. With the Canon 6D (and others maybe?) you can do that via your smart phone. No need for a removable back

Andy_Hodapp said:

ThomasT said:

If its not good enough, he tells us, if its superior, you get to know.

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I really hope you are trolling or kidding.

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KR certainly has the ability - for good or worse - to convey his personal mid-range amateur preferences as a definite opinion, and for people (re)entering the dslr market imho that's at least better advice than the usual "just get expensive gear, you'll get sparkling(tm) shots" often found in stores.

Btw what the poster above wrote is also KR's business concept - "help me help you" and make things (apparently) simpler - so no need to attack people who (currently) like KR.

Great shots. 4-6 months in Africa is beyond a dream. Do you rent or own the Landcruiser. I will need to study your website.

BTW, where do spend the 6 to 8 months? I hope some place equal exciting.

Same issue happened twice so far. Happened with a 3rd party battery grip. First time I panicked - then I calmed down and pulled the battery and disconnected the grip and reconnected everything and it was working again. Still saving $150 on a grip is worth it though.

I've had the same thing happen a couple of times with my 5D2 and its genuine Canon grip. My best guess is that the wheel on the grip gets slightly off of a detent position and "locks out" the main wheel. As Andrea mentioned, moving the wheel on the grip back to a detent seems to correct the problem.

LetTheRightLensIn said:

scrappydog said:

LetTheRightLensIn said:

Even at ISO3200 my 7D usually beat my 5D3 for birds.

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How so? I have a 60D and 5D2. Never in a million years will ANY photo that I take with the 60D at ISO 3200 even come close to the 5D2 at ISO 3200. Not even close. The noise and breakdown of resolution is terrible.

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compare them at the same scale and not at 100%, don't just shoot two birds and compare, filter and scale the 7D bird down to 5D2 scale and then compare

the 7D sensor is a touch more efficient per sensor area than the 5D2 sensor, now if you are shooting landscapes and filling each frame the same way of course the 5D2 has less noise since the sensor is 2.6x bigger (although the 5D2 does band more in deep high iso shadows, so for particular scenes where very dark regions fill up much of the image the 7D image might look better even in this case, but that is a very special case)

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The FWC of the 5D II is still three times higher than the 7D. Even though the 7D is slightly more efficient, assuming you fill the frame with the bird, the 7D will never touch even the 5D II. The scale factor is small, and the higher megapixel count of the 5D II would actually mean you get more pixels on subject than with the 7D...so the more realistic comparison is to scale the 7D image UP to 5D II size.

Assuming you only filled the APS-C area of the frame on the 5D II, scaling the 7D down to that size does improve things, but not enough to really overcome the significant full well capacity benefit the 5D II has. The 5D III is even better in this area, as it has a larger FWC thanks to an even more efficient sensor than the 7D. Even in normalized comparisons, the 7D at ISO 3200 doesn't quite hold up to the 5D II, and doesn't even come remotely close to the 5D III.

Makes sense - thanks!

I'd get a cheap adaptall adapter, forget the FD lens and forget Ed Mika for a cheap lens. You could spend the price and get a good autofocus lens or a excellent Nikon lens plus adapter for the same money.

Yhe Ed Mika adapters are for those with expensive high quality FD glass.

I'd also pass on the AF confirm chip. Many of them are junk, and using them is complicated and frustrating. Read the manual for one before thinking that they are going to be really useful to send a bunch of data to your camera about focal length, aperture, shutter speed, etc. You also need to AFMA them.

Re: My (seemingly) never ending Focus woes.... BIF advice needed

Hi,
I have much more of a grip on how thinks should work and in many cases I do get them to work that way.
Tracking small Birds and getting them in focus is still not what I had hoped for so I am systematically trying to work through that now. That in itself is difficult, how should one do anything systematically with the little critters?
So, much of this has been said before, but I would like to discuss the points according to my experience at this time. Please bear with me :-\

So, I tried a setup where the birds can only fly across the FOV left to right to land on a feeding spot. And back out the same way. Using a Zoom is almost impossible here as the birds spend too little time in the field of view, plus DOF is in most cases just too shallow. So I'm currently trying with my 16-35.

I'm also planning a setup where the birds will fly more into the Camera instead of across it at 90°.

In the above case its impossible to put a focus point on the bird manually, I'm too slow for it. So I guessed that using 61-Point auto-selection is the way to go. I cant use AI Focus as I cant focus beforehand on a still subject, AI Servo requires a manually selected AF point beforehand too. So So IMHO it looks like one way is to use AI Servo and a single point pushed over to the left and hope that that achieves focus straight away.

Now to the background, I have trouble that the camera likes to focus on the background. I tried various sheets, but they provided a perfect target and the camera took them everytime. Apart from a proper backdrop, any tips here to provide something the camera wont focus on?

Comments?

Cheers Brian

Sporgon said:

I had a quite play about with it in PS

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The cables o not bther me - I really like this version of the image though - nice work.

Cheers

same, I've heard nothing but glowing reviews of the 135, including AF performance. If I hadn't been asleep when the sale started I would have bought a refurb this week...

LetTheRightLensIn said:

7enderbender said:

Question to all our physics and engineering experts here: I found an interesting location that is at the top of a building with cell phone transmitters attached to it. I think they're for major US carriers in case the frequencies used make a difference.

The place has the usual warning signs a la "may exceed the usual blahblah". From a medical standpoint I'm certain that it's a no-issue. But what about camera gear? I guess I might not want to use wireless triggers there but anything else at risk?

Thanks

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I drove up to Mt. Wilson, they have tons of transmitting towers up there. Got out walked around a bit. Went back to the car and used the clicker to try to unlock it, click, click, click, nothing! Even from 1" away NOTHING! Thank god it wasn't one of those cars that has no physical key mechanism or I would've be shafted. And it did make you wonder what was beaming on you up there. I've never had a key clicker fail to open something from a few feet away never mind still failing at just 1-2" inches away!

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I assume it worked later...

If you are near a powerful source of rf it can overload the front end of the car's receiver, everything gets clipped and nothing gets decoded. I work 19 kilometers away from a transmitter tower which blasts out 30 megawatts of tv, fm radio, and various emergency transmitters. We need to put filters on all of our hf band receivers or all we get is AM 1200, no matter where it is tuned, if the antenna is rotated anywhere near the tower

Hi all, just to share some info that might be of a use to those who look for travel destination/inspiration.

http://www.occhio-photography.com/travel-inspiration-%EF%A3%A6-cinque-terre/

Thanks,
R.

Re: Cheap Canon 300mm or 400mm

CanNotYet said:

I am thinking Tamron might step up here. They now have VC and USD capable enough for this area. A good way to differentiate themselves from Sigma/Canon would be to provide some new combinations of fast primes, like 250mm f/2.5, 350mm f/3.5, and 450mm f/4.5... They would probably end up in the space 2-5k$ (keeping my fingers crossed)

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Yes, those larger primes you suggested would be nice too, however I think they might fall more into the $4000 to $8000 category, even from Tamron. I wouldn't count on any of our suggestions happening though, because none of the manufacturers seem very adventurous about new lens categories, other than for dedicated video (which is fine I guess for them, since there seems to be big demand.)

The one I would like most, would be either a prime or a zoom...but extremely fast aperture. Obviously it would be very expensive and difficult to make. So I'm kind of glad there isn't one available right now, because I couldn't afford it even if one existed. I am thinking along the lines of a 60-110 f/0.8, and a 110-170 f/1.2, 1.4, 1.6...whichever could be possible. Again, probably be next to impossible to achieve a design with good image quality with such a fast aperture, especially if it's a zoom...but it would be oh so cool if it could be done. Getting results that are in focus might also be difficult, but I think people could figure it out eventually.

Quasimodo said:

Which lens is this? A 35 1.4L?

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Yes, it is the 35mm 1.4L lens. The photo is from 2009 and comes from the White House photo stream on Flickr -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/3484011749/#in/set-72157617357737487/

Canon_Wisconsin said:

I paid $1484 for my refurbished 5D Mark II last spring. It has come down in price, if you watch the sales. Canon just had a 20% off refurb sale and it was around $1408. I have seen them on Craigslist for around $1500 and depending on where you live, you could probably find used, although I like refurbed because then it has been looked over by Canon and comes with a 90 day warranty. No issues with mine at about 7000+ clicks (410 clicks when I got it).

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That is a good price! I would like to spend around £900 on the body; I don't think I'll be able to get it much cheaper than that. I live in the UK, South West England, and the problem I have is I would like to see the camera before buying it. If I could get it refurbished from Canon, like yours, I would feel happier because it would have been looked over by them. I have been looking at www.gumtree.com to see if anyone local is selling the 5D Mark ii, but many of them seem to be in London. The only place I can see Canon sell refurbished cameras in the UK is here: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/canon-outlet

Am I right in saying you have both the Canon 135L f/2 and Canon 85 f/1.8 USM? I am considering saving for one of these lenses after I get the body. I am leaning towards the Canon 135L f/2, but then I am not sure if I will use my current 70-200mm f/4 L much if I got this lens. If you don’t mind me asking, out of these two lenses, which one would you recommend?

RustyTheGeek said:

My wife's iPhone 4S and my Galaxy SIII both work fine with the 6D. My office and house WiFi and my Lenovo Intel WiFi all work with the 6D fine as well.

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Unrelated to the OP, but since you have direct experience with both iOS and Android platforms, I had a couple questions relating to the WiFi that you might know the answer to. I was reading the review on dpreview and this line caught my eye:

Unfortunately, the live view image displayed on your mobile device is the same size as the one used on the 6D's rear LCD, so you don't gain an image viewing advantage with your phone or tablet's larger screen area and higher resolution.

Does this mean that even on a tablet the preview image is only 3"? What about the final image one you pull the shutter?

My two cents: Probably not until there is a camera with built-in RT Master capability.

I cannot recommend the use of sponges, they are prone to capturing particulates and could scratch the sensor. And no hair net! Tsk tsk. Better get Canon service to take care of that.

FWIW, since I probably can't get the 007 burglar protection on my next DSLR, I would support having an optional security lock code setting that must be entered daily (or some configurable time) similar to a cell phone. Then have Canon and/or a 3rd party company keep good track of the serial numbers so if someone called in for repair, they could potentially be caught and the camera returned. (Yeah I know, all of this is a pipe dream, even the lock code.)

Since I'm dreaming, I would also like some kind of product or integrated feature that would allow you to track it similar to a child tracker necklace but more integrated or at least have something that could go in the photo bag in case it gets lifted. I have considered getting some kind of proximity alarm that sounds if the alarm device moves out of range from me and I might know which direction it went. But that's another discussion.

got my vote, man. you're by far the most creative! congrats. Cheers, Pedro.

Here is an interesting Video by Gordon Laing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=CKZzH-NzWjQ&feature=endscreen