Digital camera and 10D questions

[kyle_joyce]

I take shots of little league games and sell prints. Currently i have

an elan 7 but im thinking about going digital. It seems that the 10D

is the way to go.

For 10D owners

 

Is there a delay between the shutter button and the exposure? (I have

used family members digital cameras that have this)

 

Also what memory cards and accessories would you recommend

considering i'll need to take alot of picture (30-80 an hour)?

 

If you have any advice on printers that is welcome.

 

Thanks

 

Kyle

[beauh44]

Hi Kyle, I love my 10D and I suspect you would too. Nope, there's no delay unless you snap 8 or so pics in a row and the buffer fills up. There is about a 1 second boot-up time though. As for cards, since the 10D doesn't support write-acceleration technology, any decent brand like Sandisk will do fine. As for printers, I use an Epson 2200 and it makes very nice prints - unless B&W is your thing, and there it's a bit lacking. Last week, I bought an HP 7960 printer, pretty much just for B&W, and I'm impressed. The color prints aren't any better (to my eye) than the 2200, but the B&W's definitely are. The only drawback is ink consumption is pretty high and 8 1/2X11" is as big as the HP will go. Best wishes . . .

[scott_eaton]

Shutter lag with the 10D is a dramatic improvement over your typical digicam. I moved from mechanical Nikon's to a 10D and didn't notice a problem, and like you I cant stand the lag typical in consumer digi-cams. The 10D isn't quite as quick as the higher end Canon's or Nikon's, but I simply don't notice lag to be a problem.

 

You'll need an extra battery pack (or two) and a few spare memory cards. With commercial labs starting to get really competitive about getting your kind of business, the prices for direct output from Frontiers and Noritsu's are starting to rival home ink-jet, and it's a lot less hassle.

[patrickconnolly]

I think you'll be delighted with the 10D. I use it to shoot soccer, field hockey and little league baseball. A couple of things to keep in mind.

 

1) You'll be shooting a lot more than 80 pictures an hour. I can easily shoot over 200 images in an hour, and have often exceeded that. This means that you will need plenty of CF cards. I use 512mb cards - in my opinion they provide the best capacity for the relative cost.

 

2) Will you be printing and selling all 200 images? Of course not - but it allows you a better opportunity to capture a 'special' shot. It lets you take a shot of every pitch (if you so desire) and five frame sequences of the slide into home plate. It also lets you take more images of the 'rest' of the team - the non-star players.

 

3) You will need extra batteries. I've found that the constant refocusing necessary to shoot sports consumes a lot of battery power. It's not excessive, but if you are going to shoot more than one game (at the frame rate that I shoot) you'll need several.

 

4) Shutter lag is virtually non-existent.

 

5) I think you'll find that the quality is more than acceptable. My favorite compliment was "These are some of the best pictures we've got of 'little Johnny'"

 

My Elan 7 has been relegated to emergency backup duty.

 

Happy shooting ... Pat

[peter_phan]

<i>If you have any advice on printers that is welcome.</I> <p> Just start off with printing at your local Costco, etc. Great quality, fast, inexpensive. If you're printing higher volumes, I don't think it's worth the hassle of running your own inkjet printer. However, if you plan on printing at the shoot site, that's a different matter. <p> The 10D has a very shutter delay compared to something like a 1D or 1D MKII, which are high-end models that are extremely responsive. But I don't think there is an appreciable differene compared to your Elan 7. The delay is nothing compared to a non-SLR digicam. Compared to those models, the 10D's delay is practically non-existent. <p> As someone else mentioned, with a 10D, you'll be shooting a lot more than 30-80 shots per hour. That's the beauty of digital. You can shoot all you want, and it doesn't cost you anything. You'll want at least one 512MB CF card, preferably two. <p> You'll also want an extra BP-511 battery. Don't get the Canon OEM ones. I use the Power2000 BP-511. Less expensive and higher capacity so it lasts longer than the Canon one. You don't really need a vertical grip/battery pack (which holds two BP-511 batteries for longer shooting). I just run my batteries down to zero, then pop in a new one. Or, just change batteries at a pre-determined time during shoot (after X amount of hours, for example) before it goes dead. I just go to dead with the batteries.

[kyle_joyce]

I currently use costco but i need to print onsite for tournaments.

[beauh44]

<I>I currently use costco but i need to print onsite for tournaments.</i><BR><BR>Again, you might want a closer look at the HP 7960 because you can print without a PC. I haven't tried this, preferring to get my blood pressure up in Photoshop first, but it supposedly does a very good job - it even has a small screen built-in to the printer. It'll also print a contact sheet - albeit very slowly from what I understand. I believe Bob Atkins has reviewed this printer here on Photonet. It really does an amazing job with B&W, but the consumables aren't cheap. If you're selling the prints though, that can be worked into the price I would think. Good luck!

[markus_franke]

According to Canon (I don't remember where I read it), the 10D has a lag of 80ms from pressing the button to the start of the exposure.

I do a lot of animal photography, some of them with fast moving animals, and haven't noticed a big lag. Judging from the images and the experience from my 50E/Elan IIe, the lag is about the same for the film and the digital model.

 

Have fun,

maf