buck_rogers1

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If you are focusing on the newborn, I think the 50 would be excellent. I think your best bet is to take your kit lens and the 50 (and whatever other shorter lenses you have) and do a practice shoot as you'll most likely have hours of time before the blessed event (especially if this is her first). That way, you will be ready and have the proper ISO and compositions laid out in your mind.

 

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Again, congratulations.

Haha. I am in medical school and for the past month have been working in labor and delivery and have taken many pictures for patients. I find that the widest anyone has ever really needed has been around 24-30mm on a crop sensor body. Those are usually family portraits of baby, mom and dad. I agree that limiting yourself to 50mm will be very confining (no way to get all three in a natural pose). During birth and immediately after, though, you won't really have time to pose or do anything that would require any amount of wide field of view so, switching lenses while they take the baby to be weighed and cleaned so that you can have pictures of the family with your kit lens or a 24-30 will be possible. <p>

Also, with the amount of 'stuff' that happens, your viewers might actually appreciate the tight crops that you will get of mom and baby that exclude the other parts of childbirth. <p>

Another thought is if anyone else will be with you, you'll want to train them on the use of your camera because you might want to be more involved like cutting the cord and such.<p>

Most importantly, congratulations on being part of such a wonderful part of life!

If you have the processing power (RAM) I find it is best to use a longer, minimal distortion lens. You'll have a lot more files to work with but also much more resolution and other advantages. The 85 f/1.8 and 50 f/2.5 both have a really flat field as well as plenty of other desirable optical characteristics that tend to be traded off for view angle in wider lenses. If you don't mind having a dozen images or so for a wide panorama you can get great files to start with that have little to no vignetting, wide angle distortion or flaring. CS3 also has a great automate feature called photomerge that does almost all of the photoshopping for you.<div></div>

Nope, you need to set sRGB on your camera, too. Otherwise, you're good.

With your p.s., I think E-TTL will still work with a used 420 EX. It is my understanding that the st-e2 came out around the time of the older generation of ex speedlights like the 420 550 and 580 so if you can find a 420 that's in your budget, you can then use the st directly on your shoe so it works and have two flashes independently controlled in your shot.

<p>p.s. I use the 420 ex on my 30D and its E-TTL works perfectly. Make sure you get an ex though and not an ez.

Is this supposed to be a fisheye at the wide end or is that really the barrel distortion you get from such a zoom?

If you have the chance to use the new Adobe Camera Raw, it has a great 'recovery' slider that preferentially pulls back some of your highlight detail (I think about one EV) without throwing your midtones and shadows down. I love it.

I had issues with the sigma and took it back for the canon 35/2 which I love. However, I don't think its AF will be enough for your BMX work. In that case, I'd take the sigma if you're not unlucky enough to get a bad sigma. If you don't want to risk it, go for the canon 28/1.8.

Sorry, in answer to your last question, at the same distance you should only get a slightly larger image from the 300 alone versus the 70-200+TC. However, it will be even bigger with the TC on the 300 but it still won't knock your socks off. Again, rent.

I think you've already come to your own conclusion, the 300, since you already have the 1.4 TC. If I were you, I would rent the 300 for a day and shoot as much as possible on you 10D and compare shots from the same distance with your other lens as well as all the permutations that you can get from the lenses and TC. Any good shop should then apply your rental fee toward the purchase of the lens if you decide to buy.

No it's not. AE means Auto Exposure and in 'M' everything is set manually. To get the result you're looking for (I assume) you can point the camera to the area you want to meter (like you would in P, AV, or TV) and rather than push the *AE button, dial in your shutter and aperture to align the needle with the appropriate position on the exposure scale (+/- EV or right in the middle). I'm sure someone here can give a more articulate explanation than this though.

I have a wide array of wide and normal lenses yet my 85 is hands down the best lens I have for panoramas. Giving me great distance from my subject, it really flattens out the architecture that I've used it for (like ankor wat). I recently got a 50mm copy lens that might give me even better results. IMHO I think your 70-200 should give you wonderful results but watch out for overloading your computer. Many of my files end up being >500MB. FWIW I do all of my stitching in CS2.

If you have a "Sun Disk" "Exxtreme III" as you wrote and these are not type-o's I think you have bought a fraudulent knock off of the genuine "Sandisk" "Extreme III". Can you check the details of your flash card and report back to us? Where did you buy the card?

I've never been there but...I'd certainly shoot in manual, fire off a few exposures before launch to get my exposure right. I'd shoot in jpg so as to not fill up the camera's buffer so quickly. Doing so, I'd better be sure my exposure is good. Other people might have different opinions. I expect someone here has actually been there. Let's see what they have to say.

I have the 35 f/2 and love it. I also have the 28 f/2.8 and it also is very sharp but the f/2.8 leaves it on the shelf as the 17-40 f/4 and 35 f/2 stay in the bag or on the camera (30d). I recommend the 35 if that's wide enough for you.

I think it's actually pcb for 'printed circuit board'

My kit lens was sharper than my 17-40 at any aperture. What attracted me was the color, contrast, and robustness of the L (all good for a zoom). It all depends on what you are looking for (in a zoom). BTW I got a killer deal on the L and would have never paid $700 for it.

I may be wrong but I think your 5D has 4 'invisible' AF points around the center that are only active in AI Servo mode. Try that. FWIW I sold my 50 f/1.4 partly because the AF speed and accuracy sucked bit time.<p>Your body should be able to focus at the light level you indicate (f/1.4 1/20s ISO1600=1.3EV) since it allegedly will AF down to .5EV. You might look at a 1-series as they focus in 0EV light.

You are more experienced than I am with astrophotography but you might get some answers here: http://www.canon.co.jp/Imaging/astro/index-e.html

Keep in mind that, although the 85 has a closer minimum focus distance (2.8') than the 100 (3') the magnification is only slightly greater (1:7 vs. 1:7.3) on the 85. Therefore, you will get tighter head shots on the 85 but you will be closer to your subject. Neither one will be very tight on your full frame. <p>Personally I like the 85 (135 eq. and it focuses faster than the 100) on my cropped DSLR and sold my 100 which I used on film. I don't like the 80-ish FOV. I'd go with the 100 or better, 135.

Are you accidentally bumping the exposure lock button (*)? I think what's happening is the camera is trying to meter with your lens cap on. Try taking the lens cap off before you turn the camera on and see what happens. You might also try changing the shutter and aperture setting in M mode, power off, then power on again and see if your settings have stuck. If none of this works, you might need to return the camera or check for a firmware update.

Your shutter speed of 1/4 second allowed the movement of the man to be captured as me moved from right to left across the frame, then your flash fired and exposed him in the milisecond or so that the flash was lit up, stopping his motion. In order to eliminate this phenomenon either have your subjects remain motionless and use a tripod or switch to a creative mode (P or M in this case). In P mode, it will set your shutter speed to 1/60s or so and set your aperture to get the appropriate exposure with the flash. In M mode you can set both your shutter (faster to stop motion) and aperture (to control depth of field). The problem with doin this is your background will be drastically underexposed. Remedy this by turning up your ISO or better yet, get a faster lens (f/2 or less)

I think you need to ask yourself what is the purpose of the trip and what will you do with the photos afterward. If you are tripping to photograph and plan on printing big and selling the prints the Rebel has it. OTOH, tripping to experience and relax and learn, take a small digicam. In reality, you're probably somewhere along a continuum between the two options.<p>When I got my first digital I traveled through Brasil for a month and couldn't bear to take the digital. I took an Elan with a bag of provia. I didn't like my slides as much when I got home because I was limited on number of exposures but when my hard drive crashed the next year, I was glad I still had the slides.<p>The Elan was $100 used and worth every penny. You've got a beautiful lens that would be a shame to leave behind. <p>FWIW, this summer I spent two months in SE Asia with my 30d, 85, 35, 17-40 and 70-200 lenses and never had a problem with any criminal or natural elements.

When I bought this lens almost a year ago, I had never concerned myself with bench testing or photographing rulers and newspapers (I guess it's not my photographic taste). After looking at the first three or four exposures I noticed, from real-world scenario photographs, that the focus was off. I looked on the forums for others' experience with this lens and soon became obsessed with finding all of the weaknesses of this lens. <p>Long story short...I sent it back in exchange for canon's 30 f/2.0. Maybe the lens was fine and I just am a poor workman who blames his tools. Maybe I'm not disciplined enough for f/1.4. Anyway, it was the poor real world performance that made me send it back not the ruler tests.<p>Get out and use the lens for the reasons you bought it. If it's not performing like you expect, get rid of it. Period. Try another copy of it or just go with a different lens.