jp121 said:

This place charges AUD$100 to submit a camera for inspection. They didn't charge me anything more for the repair.

Click to expand...

They wanted to charge me between 200 and 300 euro because the camera was out of warranty :'(

winglet said:

I heard that Nikon has the same camera but with 2 more stops of DR. It must be true because DxO says so and has all these graphs an' stuff.

I am writing a sharply-worded letter to Canon as we speak.

Click to expand...

Oh, where can I buy it?

I had exactly opposite path - bought SL1, which is nice cam, but went for M. I miss fast AF and viewfinder hugely, but I also gained few things. I believe I´m not going back to DSLR league. Ever. If they release EOS M3 with better sensor, faster AF and viewfinder, I´m instantly in...

unfocused said:

Personally, I've always thought this was one of the all-time greatest sports photos (says a lot more than any razor sharp action shot ever could in my opinion)

Click to expand...

Why, though? A sentimental attachment to the idea that "old, grainy and b&w" somehow has a meaning, a significance - a "truth" - in itself? (Nothing wrong with that, of course).

For me, I see in that image a great photo opportunity somewhat lost for the want of modern equipment to capture it.

Apologies if it's covered on page 2, it's sleepy time and I skipped it - but wanted to add...

My SL1/100D is set up for back-button focusing!

Have a rummage through the custom features, I don't recall the steps but it's in there

Also, 35/2, 50/1.8 (mk 1) and 100/2 are ace wee EF, fast primes on this little guy! (They look super-cool on it, too..) I've never been interested in the pancake, seems no better than shooting a fast compact from what I've seen, IMO.

Also, also - if people try supporting this camera primarily with their LEFT hand under its body/lens barrel, like someone who knows how to hold a camera, and just use your finger/thumb tips of your right hand to hit the dials and buttons there's no real problem with its handling

Also, also, also... I think I prefer framing with tiny viewfinders - and I primarily shoot a 5D3!

If there isn't, small battery-powered monitors are off-the-shelf accessories; the video-oriented ones typically have HDMI in and many can be ordered to run on common camera batteries. B&H has a lot of info on them.

Jim

Beautiful!

mackguyver said:

JustMeOregon said:

Everyone that prints enough of their own photos these days will eventually discover Red River Paper.

http://www.redrivercatalog.com/

I'm responsible for the care & feeding of an Epson 4900 and I'm not at all shy about spending money on quality supplies. I print a lot and these guys offer top-notch quality and the best customer service in the business. Period.

Click to expand...

+1 on Red River - I always found it to be an excellent match for my Epson printers. I ditched the photo printer for many years (waiting for color profiling to catch up) but bit on the Pixma Pro 100 deal as well a year or so ago for my personal printing.

The best paper I've found for the Pixma is the Canon Pro Platinum paper. I'm more of a matte paper guy, but I have to say that the Pro Platinum produces some amazing glossy prints and comes close to the metallic prints in terms of depth & color saturation. Keep an eye on Canon USA's store for deals - last year I purchased several packs of the Pro Platinum 8x10 paper in a buy one, get four free deal with free shipping and extra paper (4x6 packs) for spending over $50. I spent $67 and got nearly $600 in free paper. Really. I have enough paper to last me many, many years now!

Now if they'd just do the same thing with the ink, I'd be all set, but I think there's some kind of conspiracy going on here ;D

Click to expand...

Ditto here. I didn't even have a printer yet (but I knew I'd be looking), and when that paper deal came along, I stocked up. Then I got the Pixma Pro-100 with the rebate and paper deal from Adorama in June. The rebate just arrived this week, so when all was said and done, I ended up with 250 sheets of Canon Pro Luster 8x10 paper (~ $175), 50 sheets of 13x19 Canon Semi-Gloss (~ $35) and the Printer (~ $389), a combined value of about $600, for a grand total of about $70.

So far, I'm loving the prints. Took some figuring to get the color management right between the printer driver and Lightroom, but I think I have it figured out now. Holding up a portrait of my daughter to my calibrated IPS display, I was giddy at the result.

The 70-300DO has two advantages: firstly it is very compact, and secondly it sells for less than half it's new price used. Agree with those that say it responds to unsharp mask. It's weak at the 70mm mark and that is where the 70-300 non L is actually very good - unlike the rest of that lens's range where the performance is quite dire.

Can't imagine anyone buying a DO new when it is the same price as the 70-300L.

Today I shot with both the 6D and the 7D now granted the 6D is newer and full frame but the IQ difference once I got the shots into Lightroom & then Photoshop are like night & day it really shows up how old the sensor & processor is in the 7D I had not shot with the two side by side before.

I also have an Olympus OM-D E-M10 which has a smaller 16MP sensor but obviously much newer than the 7D and again the IQ beats the 7D hands down especially regarding sharpness & definition, I use this camera if I want to travel light. (Yes the SL1 is small but not the lenses)

For Canon sake the 7D replacement must be at Photokina sensor wise they are being left behind by Sony who also supply Nikon & Olympus with CMOS sensors.

yorgasor said:

bobshut said:

So, if the soon to be released 7DII fails to come up to your expectation what's your Plan B?
(assuming you were planning to buy)

Click to expand...

I'll get so mad, sell all my gear and take up basket weaving. It's the only sane choice.

Click to expand...

Be sure to do it underwater. It's a more useful skill.

privatebydesign said:

But if nothing is capable of reproducing the "original" colours, which is true in very saturated flowers (not the camera or screen or printer ink), then all we can ever hope for is the best realistic interpretation and that has to include the detail, which we can accurately replicate if not the most saturated of the colours. If Perceptual is blocking up you have other issues.

Besides, colour is not as static a concept as we think, besides the "is red to me red to you?" unprovable conundrum, any reproduction is limited by what light is either shining on it, for a print, or out of it for a screen.

Best practice is to shoot with a color checker card and create your own profile, everything else is just guessing and we are notoriously unreliable at that, then post process for detail. It isn't difficult or time consuming, it just takes discipline.

Click to expand...

You are quite right about colors being a matter of perception. Between reflective & transmissive mediums and individual vision, it's impossible to produce perfect accuracy. I feel that color management has come a very long way and gotten to the point where we can get close, but for me I follow the 80/20 rule. For most of my work, I use a calibrated wide gamut monitor and AdobeRGB color space and adjust to taste. That gets me close and really only represents what I believe the colors to be. For color-critical work (I shoot art reproductions and products occasionally), I build a profile with my Passport ColorChecker and shoot under controlled lighting and work hard to produce accurate colors. Even then, the final product generally depends on who my client uses for printing or their website (typically an ad agency). If they have me print, I generally use Bay Photo or Aspen Creek, and use their latest profiles. In the end, I've never had a print come out perfectly, but it's always been so close that no one (other than me) has ever noticed.

On a side note, the biggest shock to me when I started using a wide gamut monitor was white balance. In the past, subtle differences (of say 100K) had never bothered me, but suddenly I became very sensitive to them.

lexptr said:

ecka said:

My missing Art lens list is:
Sigma 12mm f/2.8 DG ART
Sigma 20mm f/1.8 DG ART
Sigma 24mm f/1.4 DG MACRO (1:3-ish) ART
Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG ART
Sigma 135mm f/1.8 DG OS ART
Sigma 100-300 f/4 DG OS ART

Click to expand...

The Sigma 100-300 f/4 DG OS ART is an interesting option. I have the old one, but it is the worst lens I have and the only one of my lenses I would prefer not to buy. It is capable to give very good results. Sometimes... Look at any birds on my website: www.len-lex.com/gallery.asp - all ware taken with that lens. But sometimes it just keeps failing. E.g. I shoot in good light from tripod with remote release and fine-focusing with liveview, fast shutter, no wind or earthquakes, but the result is damn blurry! Very inconsistent. Maybe it is just a bad copy. Anyway, with current level of Sigma's lenses it is very interesting to see such lens reworked. And OS would be a very useful thing on it. Kinda love and hate story, which probably would be better with the renewed version
And if we speak about birding – 100-300 is too short actually. Even with TC x1.4. So the rumored 300-600mm f/? OS Sport would also be interesting. I hope it will be constant f/4. It is not an easy task, but really isn't something impossible for Sigma. What I would be even more interested to see is a refresh of their super-telephoto primes! I do hope one day to get something like 500mm f/4 IS, but Canon's options are insanely expensive. Something IQ-comparable from Sigma for half the price and I'm in!

Click to expand...

Yes, I remember all the old Σ100-300/4 reviews being very controversial, due to obvious reasons like bad QC and copy variation. Now, the new Σ120-300/2.8 is just crazy good (for a sigma zoom ), even with TCs. IMHO, the updated Σ100-300/4 (or 300-600mm) should be really good.

I'm glad your back up and running.

pablo said:

I hope you are insured. Maybe next visit to a poor country take a small pocket camera that won't attract the thieves, and won't hurt you too much if you lose it.

Click to expand...

A tranquilizer gun is cheaper....

At least on my 6D, I've always found the 40mm to be amazingly sharp from corner to corner. Judging from TDP's sample crops, the 35mm f/2 IS doesn't look to be significantly sharper. They look to be very comparable in IQ from about f/2.8 up.

So I don't think you got a dud. The 40 is just an absolutely amazing lens for the price.

As far as I can tell, the big advantages of the 35mm are the image stabilization, less CA at smaller apertures (at least judging by the sample crops), ring USM, and the ability to focus while the camera/lens is asleep.

And, of course, the fact that it goes to f/2, but that goes without saying.

Ruined said:

I agree - with a zoom lens if you drop it bad enough that it cracks or damages the plastic it will likely need to be sent in for service to be re-aligned anyway.

Click to expand...

At least on this particular lens, that wasn't the case. The lens took about a two foot drop onto asphalt (relatively soft as materials go). The thin threads literally disintegrated into half a dozen splinters of plastic, half a millimeter by a millimeter by an inch long each, give or take, each of which was basically one thread. You could readily snap them in two by using only three fingers and applying a fairly small amount of force. There's probably no way you can make the threads thicker and still be compatible with existing filters, so you're pretty much stuck with something a little thicker than a piece of pencil lead taking the full brunt of the impact.

In spite of the impact, though, I kept using the lens for the remainder of that trip, and it worked approximately as well as did before (it wasn't a great lens to begin with, mind you), except that I couldn't put filters on it anymore, the lens cap kept falling off, and I got glare if the sun hit the scratches just right.

I think it's more a question of luck whether an end impact will cause plastic threads to disintegrate or not. It has less to do with the force of the impact and more to do with the angle of the impact, as to whether the razor-thin threads or the body itself takes most of the hit. That's why I feel that lenses should always use metal threads. In the worst case, metal threads bend and must be replaced. In the worst case, plastic threads shatter, and your front glass must be replaced. And even if it does require a recalibration afterwards, that's still likely to be cheaper than recalibration plus replacing the front glass.

Looking to buy a full-frame body with sensor shift that will accommodate (via adapters) my small stash of Nikkor, Takumar and Olympus OM legacy lenses. I know nothing about these bodies, so suggestions would be welcome. Not willing to spend a fortune, so a discontinued or used one would be great. Thanks.

Mt Spokane Photography said:

adamsnapper said:

My 6D is a donkey...don't get me wrong the image quality, WHEN it focuses properly, is sublime. I too mostly use the centre focus spot. I shoot ceremonies for my local council with the Mayor and participants. The hit rate was less than 20%, so much so that I now resort to manual focus for these.

I also take ID/Passport type images at theses ceremonies, I focus on the right eye, the focus beeps to confirm lock, hold and recompose and when you check the images, a huge percentage are soft, some by quite a margin.

Click to expand...

Don't hold and recompose and then expect the shot to be in focus, if you are at f/8 or far away, its ok, but up close at f/4 or wider, the depth of field is shallow, and the error due to a poor technique is going to cause oof images.

Don't blame the camera.

Click to expand...

Shooting a reasonably close-up head shot and focusing on one eye and moving the camera back just to slightly recentralise the image...the fact that the camera is bleeping to tell me that it has locked focus even with a very slight, and it is an absolutely minute, recompose, that eye/face at F8 should be sharp. Some are tack sharp and yet the second shot taken within 2 seconds is off, and sometimes it's way off. I've been a pro shooter for nearly 30 years and it's certainly not my 'poor' technique, I have NEVER had a canon camera that misbehaved/ mis-focused this much across so many differing shooting conditions, indoors and out, long shots and close shots and across so many of my lenses all of which are 2.8L glass except that F4 24-105.

Steve said:

dgatwood said:

You're subtly misinterpreting what I said. What I said was that there's no benefit to the shorter flange distance for lenses longer than 40mm, and as a result, most Canon lenses (particularly longer lenses) are built exclusively in EF or EF-S format, and require an adapter to use them on an EF-M camera.

Click to expand...

So your post was only outlining the problems of the EOS M system and not mirrorless technology in general?

Click to expand...

That part was, anyway.

Hi Y'all

Noob here, first time poster, long time follower.... I have a 40D and shoot primarily landscape, mainly sunrises and sunsets.... West Texas is FLAT.... Currently, I have a 18-55MM f/3.5 & 24-135MM Std stock stuff... My drainpipe is from my 1D days 15 years ago and is in pristine condition Any insights ? Any Trades offered?

eninja said:

So I got myself a part time shooting client on weekends in the park.
I like the simplicity of a prime lens so I got 35mm IS and 85mm 1.8. - plus one body 6D.
To avoid changing lens all the time, I decided to get another body.
with low budget I only get to choose crop body. - I got a brand new 700D with 18-55 stm at bargain price.

On the first night, testing view finder AF - its so cheap that I could not use it professionally, plus no back button focus, very hard to choose af points - i was like holding a toddler's toy camera. Live view auto focus is good but I could not find myself moving my hand here and there while taking shots. So I post it for sale on the next day.

Nobody confirmed to buy it. So I play it on my second night.
Trying my best to give it a place on my shoot.
Mount my 85mm. and say I might as well try Manual Focus on this thing.

Suddenly, bam! bam! Its so easy and fast to nail manual focus on this thing using live view. And the swivel screen was perfect for this.

I suddenly fall inlove with manual focus, not the 700D. lol.
big problem with 700D, exposure setting. - NO MINIMUM SHUTTER SPEED AND ISO step is 1 STOP?????!!
so now im keeping 700D for a while, upgrade to 70D later.

now its the lens issue. 85mm on crop is to narrow for me.
looking on a good manual focus prime now!

Click to expand...

Might want to try 50mm f/1.2L. It is a superb manual focus lens (does auto, too) and the aperture is ideal for crop's low ISO requirements. Plus, it will give the the 80mm FOV you likely desired out of the 85mm. Results are very similar to the 85L II, just less sharp.

Heh, its kind of funny and y'all are gonna jump down my throat but the a77 II is basically what everyone here is saying they want the 7DII to be: a high mp crop camera with ultra fast burst speed and 1DX/5DIII style AF system for <$2k

Khufu said:

Sporgon said:

Khufu said:

Sporgon said:

Khufu said:

Maybe it's something a little different, like a Square Format sensor which could utilise many current EF lenses' image circle? 36 x 36mm may be a little much but perhaps something greater than the 24mm width/height. Even if the lenses projected a solid circular outline right up to the 3:2 sensor's corners rather than fading, there'd still be room to extend the lesser of the two dimensions as the other's reduced to, say, 4:3 or 1:1?... maybe that's what's going on with this new 7D2 sensor tech - a taller APS-C width sensor to shoot Square Format images at around 23 x 23mm?!

Oooooh...

I'm done. Carry on

Click to expand...

You just failed your 'Ordinary' level maths

Click to expand...

I really must have 'cause I've no idea where you're saying I've messed up, ha! Really, before everyone else notices, where'd I screw up and how many times?

EDIT: Wait... is it because this thread's about >35mm Film size? Heh, alright, how's 24 x 24.1mm for that 7D2? It's greater than a 35mm frame in one dimension then, at least

Click to expand...

No, it's because you can fit a rectangle inside a circle of a given diameter that has a longer side closer to the circle diameter than a square can be. Because circles are round and squares are, well, square

Click to expand...

Dude, that was taken into consideration, repeatedly, hence the notes on reducing the wider dimension as the shorter one's increased to achieve the mentioned aspect ratios and the statement about 36 x 36mm being a little much but something from 24mm upwards being a possibility - I really thought I'd missed something but now I'm just wondering if "you just failed your Ordinary Level Reading Skills" - which is a much bitchier thing to say on these forums than I care to but... you started it

Click to expand...

Don't take it personally, I was only joking. Don't try a career in photography if you're this thin skinned - you'll end up a nervous wreck.

You say "36x36 being a little too much." Wrong. It would be far too much as far as practical use is concerned. Draw a 36x24 rectangle, then use a compass to draw a circle around it. Then try lifting the 24mm sides to form a 36x36 square and you will see just how large the image circle would have to be to accommodate this format.

You say make it a 4:3 ratio by shortening the long side and increasing the short, and this was made in the context of your post referring to larger sensors, yet that would give precisely the same size sensor in terms of area.

With regard to making the APS-c size square to increase sensor size, this could be accommodated using the EF FF lenses but you would still end up with a sensor that is smaller ( in area ) than the APS-h, so again that would be pointless unless you happen to like square pictures which few people do.

Just in case anyone’s visiting Canberra and may be interested in a spot of birding, there is a fantastic forum you could follow prior to your trip to help you identify the most active areas with the best sightings, it’s part of the Canberra Ornithologists Group (COG), the forum is under the link “COG chatline archive”

http://canberrabirds.org.au/observing-birds/popular-birding-spots/

Best of luck