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Advice sought on travel to Cuba

While the travel restrictions for Americans traveling to Cuba have been relaxed, there are still some restrictions.

First, you need to find a Cubian travel agency that is approved by the US Department of State. Two that come to mind are "Insight Cuba" and "Central Holidays". There are probably more.

However, there are still restrictions on what you can do and where you can go in Cuba -- some of them may be incompatable with photography.

Here is a good articles that explains some of it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/travel/cuba-doing-it-your-way.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/travel/cuba-going-with-a-tour-company.html

The catch is that you have to go on a "people meeting people" type tour. This means that you won't be able to wander around nature taking pictures. It is not a general tourist vacation. There are still a lot of restrictions on how much money you can spend and what you can spend on it.

Until the US stops its stupid and emotionally based embargo on Cuba, it is still tough for Americans to travel to Cuba.. especially if you have a clearance or other employment restrictions.

There are ways to get around the legalities, but they are best not discussed on this forum.

Short answer: Cuba is still not a friendly American photography location.

It is too bad. I used to be an avid Scuba diver. Americans are the only people not allowed to dive Cuba (probably why Cuban waters are still clean and undamaged?). Due to childish national pride by the US, the only way I could dive in Cuba would be to deliberately circumvate US laws. Too bad. I hear that many parts of Cuba are beautiful.

Soon, one of these days, we will grow up. :-\
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High Megapixel EOS on the Way as Mentioned by Canon

Nitroman said:
Any more news on this high megapixel full frame camera ?

What is expected resolution in MP ?

Is it likely to be announced at Photokina 2014 ?

If so, when will it realistically be available to buy ?

I've waited years to replace my Canon 1Ds3 with a significant upgrade and almost given up hope ... we have waited long enough surely !?! And i'm heavily invested into Canon glass so no i'm not jumping ship to Nikon (yet!) ;)

Canon, please stop keeping us in the dark ...

I think the best you could hope for would be a development announcement rather than an actual release.
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Samyang 50mm F1.4... Anyone interested?

I can imagine it being tough to sell as a photo lens, but the VDSLR version is going to have a hard time meeting the demand.

Video / film people have been complaining since forever about there missing this one lens. And the lack of a 50mm was the sole reason I didn't invest in the Samyang lenses. Now the cine set is complete.

Let's hope they didn't drop the ball image quality wise.
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Canon mirrorless: Status?

wickidwombat said:
wickidwombat said:
Zv said:
wickidwombat said:
this is the EF-S and EF-M samyang / rokinon 8mm comparison
without even adding in the adapter there is a massive size difference already

Would you be so kind as to upload a wee pic of the EOS M with the EF-M version of the 8mm fisheye attached to it please?

Just want to see it for reference.

sure i'll do it now
here it is with the 18-55 for comparison

Woah thanks! It's very compact, much smaller than I thought it would be! Right then where is that credit card ....
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lifespan of IS motor?

Rocky said:
Most people accept that their car may not be trouble free for less than 5 year.

I expect my car to be trouble-free for at least five years, too. I've never had a DSLR that didn't still work after 5+. The only lens I've ever had fail (ignoring the shattered filter threads and scratched front of one lens that I dropped) was my original Digital Rebel kit lens. It died after only 9 months. In hindsight, it was probably under warranty, so I should have had Canon fix it, but the thought didn't even occur to me at the time.

Of course, I didn't really care enough about that lens to bother with shipping it to Canon to fix it. The day it failed, I borrowed a 20mm prime from one of my coworkers and used it to shoot all day. I was so shocked at how much sharper the photos were that I ordered a 17–85 and never looked back (except to swap out the bad ribbon cable with a part from a broken copy of that lens just to have a "safe for use at the beach" lens).
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Advice: extension tubes Macro

Tanispyre said:
I do like the Canon 12mm tube, the smaller tubes are useful for shorter focal length lenses, and only Canon makes a 12 mm, for more extension, I see no difference between a good set of Kenko Auto extension tubes, and the Canon ones. The Kenko set also allows more combinations of extension for various magnifications.

That's not accurate. Kenko also makes a 12mm, and the automatic extension tube set for Canon (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/375102-REG/Kenko_AEXTUBEDGC_Auto_Extension_Tube_Set.html) comes with 12mm, 20mm and 36mm tubes that can be used individually or stacked.

Just bought a set of those and they're quite nice. Perhaps not as beefy as the Canon and don't mount quite as smoothly (but fine), but a good cost savings at $180 for up to 68mm in extension.
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Rubber covering loose on zoom of 24-70 II - advice?

Thank you each and all. I called the NJ CPSUSA (couldn't, inexplicably, get through to Irvine) and was very very well-treated by John DiMauro, one of their contacts. I ordered the ring, part # YB2-3754-020, confirmed that this was for Model 2 ZOOM ring, and paid all of $6.15. The real test will be whether my klutzy fingers can get this puppy on. Given my (remote past) extreme difficulty correctly applying condoms, I am worried about this; but the consequences of failure with the lens-collar are less severe, and less expensive.
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Canon 6D True High ISO King?

jocau said:
verysimplejason said:
MLfan3 said:
some 5D guys are extremely insecure and condescending, hating the 6D just like some die hard D8xx fans hate the Sony A7R or D610.
but it all depends on what you shoot or what how much weight you like to carry with you regardless or tiny bit of AF feature set difference between the 2 in question here.
but one thing I am sure about is the 6D's center point AF is quite much better than any AF point of the 61pts of the 5D Af sensor or D810 sensor.
I tried many times in lowlight and nothing with the mirror beat the 6D in the area of lowlight AF.
The GH4 and the A7s are better than the 6D in this specific area, but none of Nikon Canon with mirror beats it.
Oh and also for long exposure thermal noise, the 6D is about 34 percent better than the 5D3 , you can see it in all sensor tests including Roger's.

Some guys just really don't want to admit 6D's sensor IQ superiority in low-light. Well, if it's AF that's more important to them and what defines "HIGH ISO KING", then so be it. We can't argue on something where our definition differs.

It really hurts when you invested some more $$$ just to find out that it's not superior in everything to something that's significantly cheaper. ;)

Correct, but the 6D also suffers from that 'disease' as the outer AF points of even the T5i are better than those of the 6D.

I'm a center-point / MF user so this doesn't bother me. For some, the center point is enough but that's not saying that the outer points doesn't work.
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Update on the EOS 7D Mark II Spec List

neuroanatomist said:
Don Haines said:
There is a third possibility...

To do 4K right requires 4 times the computing power as 2K video. That makes a lot of heat and drains batteries fast... and there is a real possibility that the problems with dissipating the heat make it impractical in a DSLR body unless you add in heatsinks, and that is a negative to all those using it for stills. Obviously, a 1D-C has the thermal mass, battery capacity, and radiative surface to handle this, but does a smaller body?

Does the Panasonic GH4 not do 4K right? It certainly doesn't have a large thermal mass or space for big heat sinks inside.
GH4 has internal 4k although it is 8 bit 4:2:0.
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Canon EF24-105mm f4 IS USM time for a refresh?

dgatwood said:
I guess my point was that folks who buy the kit lens with a FF DSLR are either upgrading from a crop and replacing all their lenses (in which case they'd probably like something with a focal range that's angle-equivalent to their main crop lens) or they're just starting out. In either case, it's probably their first FF lens (unless they own a long zoom), and for most of them, build quality will be a secondary concern to IQ

A. When I spend good money on a product, I expect it to have build quality to match. I also wanted something wider than the EF-S 17-85mm that I replaced with the EF 24-105mm. I upgraded from EF-S 10-22mm to EF 17-40mm.

B. People who get to the point of upgrading to FF should be able to read and understand lens reviews, search for photos taken with various lenses, and get a good feeling of what is it they're getting.

[OK, they might be idiots with cash to spare, in which case there's no point in discussing their motivation.]

dgatwood said:
And although most of the pros would lean towards an L lens because of the higher build quality, that doesn't necessarily have much bearing on what the next kit lens should be, because most of them already own lenses, and aren't likely to buy a kit with a lens anyway. :)

Exactly - I don't expect pros to upgrade their kit lens, which is what the 24-105mm is.

If a pro wants an EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM with significantly better IQ, he'd probably be willing to split extra cash on something that is too expensive to be kit. It's analogous to the difference between the EF-S 18-200 and the EF 28-300mm L. If you want convenient & cheap, buy crop. If you need convenient & pro, fork a few thousands of dollars on FF body & superzoom, knowing full well you're still making some compromises.

[In other words: the point of kit is cheap, and the reality of cheap is that it sucks, as in not being one of the best L lenses around.]
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5D3 No Longer in Production

Pablo

Suggest by the way you take a look at the films that have shot with Red cameras including films by the biggest DOPs in the industry the images from the Epic (5K) and Dragon (6K) are both right up there such as seen on Prometheus. The Dragon is currently on some pretty big films that will release in 2015 if the big studios thought they represented any kind of risk they certainly would not be using them. Sure the Arri Alexa is the current king of the professional cinematography industry (its 2K) and the two could not be more different.
The Canon C500 or C300 is not the camera of choice for Hollywood most are used for TV with maybe action shots or where the camera is at risk shots being done by Canon C500/C300s and Black Magic cameras. The main reason for this is ergonomics and ease of use the Japanese seems to swamp their cameras with too many switches & knobs when in reality many changes can be performed in post.
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5D mark III Central autofocus point performance with Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3

mikio said:
5D mark III Central autofocus point performance with Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3

Today I discovered a very strange behavior of autofocus of this lens on 5D mark III.
If you use a single autofocus point it appears that the central point works much worse than others.

The main problem is in refocusing from near objects (~3m) to far away ones (30m).
If only a single center autofocus point is selected for use , the lens is refocusing from near objects to remote very badly. In many cases it gets stuck.

In fact, somehow, I obviously thought that the center point should give the best results. But it turned out that any other point except the central one provides much better refocusing (on 5D mark III). It works a bit slow but OK.

At first, I suspected that maybe it's my camera glitches. So, I put on the Canon EF300 / 4 L IS with 1.4x converter, and of cause the central point here worked exceptionally well with a Canon lens, so that means the camera is OK.
Just don’t understand how it is possible?

P.S.: The lens has actually been updated with the new firmware at a local Tamron service.
The AF menu, "Lens drive when AF impossible" is turned "ON".

I get odd results with the center point and my 100-400L too, so it's not likely to be 'just' Tamron's fault ;)
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Mindshift - Does it fit?

JPAZ said:
Thanks. I appreciate that is really useful information. So you'd think the 5d3 (with a wrist strap and plate - not an L just a bottom plate) and the 70-200 should fit? Do you carry the 70-300 upright or on it's side? The 70-200 is just a bit longer. Do you think there'd be room for the 17-40 besides?

I carry the 70-300 complete with collar/plate vertically, but I think the 70-200 might be too long to do that. I don't have a 70-200 to try it out for you, but if it fits vertically it will be extremely tight. The 70-300 fits like a glove with one velcro-stabilized divider between it and my 5D3+24-105 placed on its side with the LCD facing the velcro divider (that puts the 24-105 towards the skinnier side of the fanny pack).

There definitely is not room for a 17-40 to boot, but you could put that lens in an accessory pouch that clips onto the fanny pack if that lens needs to have super-quick access. Otherwise, the cleaner option is to put whichever additional lens is used least (70-200 or 17-40) in the upper compartment of the backpack--a place still fully accessible while wearing the pack by simply sliding it around in front of you and accessing that compartment through the back zipper.

To be clear: the 5D3 + 24-105 and 70-300L snugly fills the fanny pack, but their irregular shapes allow me to also fit the other items I mentioned in my previous post.
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Sigma and Tamron OS/VC quirks

weixing said:
Hi,
3kramd5 said:
I now own two third party stabilized lenses, the sigma 70-200 2.8 EX (there are a lot of letters and I always forget them) and the tamron 150-600. I've noticed a quirk they both exhibit that none of my canon IS lenses do: when the stabilizer engages, the frame tilts down what visually feels like about 5-10°. With the 70-200, it's not that bad, but at 600mm with the tamron, 10° is a lot.

Has anyone else noticed that kind of this happening? What's the explanation? Misalignment in the stabilizing optic? Maybe I'll shoot a video if nobody can picture what I'm seeing.
My tamron 150-600mm will usually just "jump" (meaning that it'll return to the initially aiming point) a bit when IS is activated... sometime if the IS is not activated for a long time, the frame will move down a bit, but still very close to my AF point... at 600mm, the distance it move is around the size of my 6D centre AF point... not very much... my handshake is easily 10 times worst than that... ha ha ha :-P

Have a nice day.

Haha, yah hand shake is much worse. It's easy to compensate for, but it just seemed... quirky.

AlanF said:
My 150-600 doesn't have that problem or indeed any that others have reported. My former 100-400L used to drift in IS.

Interesting. Maybe it's just a manufacturing tolerance issue if yours doesn't do it.
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