brett_bainbridge

<I>"Cameras and lenses are replacable; certain things are not."</I>

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Whatchoo talkin' bout, Willis? Even the poorest people can replace a child in 9 months or less. Expensive camera gear, on the other hand...

Farewell, Henri. You were an inspiration.

Or you could look 6 and 8 posts down on this very forum. Thanks, but we've seen it already.

I switched from an old Pentax Spotmatic based system I inherited when I found that my eyesight was causing problems with manual focus. I knew I wanted an autofocus system, and canon came out ahead in my evaluation for a lot of reasons I won't bore you with here.

 

I still have all my old pentax lineup (with some quite nice super takumar lenses) for nostalgia reasons, but I doubt I'll ever really use them much again. If I could bring myself to do so, I'd sell them off to a new home where they could live a better life.

Return to Canon it and get it fixed. Presumably the reasons you bought it in the first place still stand - if getting a defective model changes your mind on the purchase you didn't think it through well enough.

 

It sucks you got one with a problem, and it's worse yet that you'll be without it for a bit, but hey - at least it's getting fixed by Canon for you.

Why not ask them for the 300v instead? The Rebel Ti is everything the R2K was and more.

As inventive as some of these suggestions are, save yourself some time and effort and pick up a leader retriever at your local camera shop. They're like $5 and work fine. Additionally, learn the Custom Function NK Guy passed on in order to avoid the problem in the first place.

This is getting dangerously close to the kind of rampant speculation that will lead Bob to kill the thread.

 

If anyone has any backing for these speculative claims of future specs, please say so, otherwise clearly label them with "IF I was Canon, I would do:" or "I think it's clear there's a market segment for .....".

 

Thanks - don't want the easily-influenced to wait around for two years for Jean-Baptiste's hypothetical 2D or a revamped 8MP 10D. While I'm just as interested as the rest of you in possible future specs, I like my rumours served with a steaming hot side of substantiation.

There's absolutely no reason for the price to drop. They're selling like hotcakes (at least, based upon the influx of newbie questions on these boards), and there's no competition to give them market pressure.

 

Prices won't drop until a competitor introduces a competitive product (that you can buy, not some paper launch), sales drop off dramatically, or a newer & better model is released by Canon.

Isn't there a PC socket on the Wein Safe-Sync adapters?

 

And for your other question - turn the lights on, focus manually, then turn them off for the flash exposure. (Assuming your studio flashes don't provide AF assist, or else I don't understand the reason for your question)

 

Alternatively, if you have a 420EX or 520EX, set the custom function which uses the flash for AF-assist only, but doesn't fire it during the exposure.

Something's wrong with that lens... either it's horribly mangled, an element got knocked off or out of alignment, someone bathed the interior of the camera in vaseline, or... ?

Welcome to basic mathematics!

 

First,

 

a = 24, b = 70, b-a = 46, c = 1.6

 

c(a) = 38.4, c(b) = 112

 

Now,

 

1: c(b-a) = 1.6(70-24) = 1.6(46) = 73.6

 

And,

 

2: c(b) - c(a) = 1.6(70) - 1.6(24) = 112 - 38.4 = 73.6

 

So c(b-a) = c(b) - c(a)!

 

Congratulations, you've just demonstrated the several-hundreds-of-years-old mathematical property named distributivity. :)

 

Just having some fun with you!

Sounds like it should head back to have the job finished right while the work is still under warranty.

Spot-metering the face will tell you how to put the face into zone 5. If you want it in Zone 6 instead (likely) then you have to mentally compensate. Just like any reflected meter, the spot meter gives you a formula to expose 'properly' under the assumption it's pointed at a Zone 5 object. Whenever it's pointed at something lighter or darker, you need to compensate on your own.

Continuing to guess here, but if only 'M' mode works (as opposed to MF), then that would indicate a problem in the AE circuitry of the camera - or in the ability of the lens to respond to the camera's diaphragm control commands. Given some of the crazy behavior people get from simply having dirty lens-body contacts, I suppose it's not inconceivable for something similar to occur after a drop.

 

Again, tough to give you any solid hints without more information about exactly what doesn't work, in what circumstances, and what you've tried to do in order to fix the situation.

You're not giving us much information here. Do you mean that the shutter doesn't fire in AF mode? That AF doesn't seem to drive the lens? That the camera sings and dances unless it's in MF mode? That only the creative modes work, none of the PIC modes?

 

Please be more specific.

Puppy Face is giving you some good advice here - there's just no much to choose between among the various x-300 zooms. The 75-300's are all the same (the IS version has the IS elements obviously, but is otherwise identical), and the 100-300 isn't that much better. You can get better lenses if you can splurge for the much more expensive 100-400L, but that's quite a price jump. I'm sure there are many archived comparisons of these lenses already in the forum if you do a search.

"Although the problem was immediately fixed, this urban myth never dies."

 

Hardly an urban myth when it was true. At no point did anyone claim it was an ongoing problem with new EOS 3 bodies, and since we don't know the origin of Daniel's camera it's at least fair to cover off the possibility of him buying either a used one or one that's been in a box somewhere that hasn't had the benefit of the fix.

The EOS 3 at one point supposedly had underexposure problems, per <A HREF="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0011FQ">this thread</A> on Photo.net.<BR><BR>

I don't know how real that was or whether it's still an issue, but it may give you a place to start looking.<BR><BR>

Best of luck, you have a great camera there.

You can certainly get a 77mm and step-up rings for all your lenses, but you're better off buying one-step stepping rings rather than stacking them. Option 2 in your list.

 

You'll be unable to use any of your lens hoods in conjunction with the polarizer and stepping rings, of course. It's always better to buy quality filters when you can, but your budget ultimately has to have the final say, and high-quality 77mm circ.pol filters can be quite expensive.

 

Best of luck! And if it's any consolation, I *did* pay attention to filter sizes when buying lenses, and I still ended up in much the same situation as you - while there's a good tendency toward 58mm and 72mm in canon lenses, there are exceptions! Hence I have 52mm, 58mm, 72mm and 77mm filter sizes as well.

"Hmmm, I would think that this is more an issue with the lens attached to the camera, and less to do with the camera."

 

It's got to do with both. AF sensors vary from body to body, and the 300D/10D do not have the high-precision sensors you'd find in the higher end bodies. As far as I understand, they're the same sensors you'd find in the Elan7, which is not well-regarded for AF capability in low light situations. Certainly a slower lens will hurt your AF capability relative to a fast lens, but there is an element of inherent AF capability to consider.

Julian, I measure my ES-65II as between 37.5 and 38mm deep.

The fact that the Sigma provides AF-Assist for only the center AF sensor has nothing to do with its ability to do ETTL metering biased towards any of the other AF sensors.

 

I own the Sigma EF 500 Super (non-DG version) in the form of the Vivitar 880AFC, so I'll speak in terms of experience with that. I have no specific knowledge of the Sigma EF 500 DG ST, so take me with a grain of salt if you must.

 

For my needs it was a better choice than the 420EX, but not as expensive as the 550EX. Had I had the money for a 550EX at the time, I would have bought it over the Sigma/Vivitar no questions asked. However, given the price I paid for the flash I am very pleased with its capabilities.

 

I would not have been happy with the 420EX - less zoom coverage, less power, no access to on-flash manual controls, so for me the Sigma/Vivitar was the right answer. Your situation may well be different, and you need to make that decision on your own.

 

Is the Sigma/Vivitar right for everyone? Probably not. It's a touch less powerful than the 550EX, nowhere near as solid in construction, and there's the issue of ongoing compatibility to consider (hence the existence of the DG version). Some people have reported over or under-exposure tendencies with their flashes, but mine has not exhibited any of this behaviour. For my situation it was the right answer, but only you can make that call when it comes to your needs.

 

Try one if you can, and see what you think of it in person!

"The website where the pictures are is probably blocked by your firewall, the site is blocked from where I work"

 

I'm not getting the standard "this website is blocked because of blahblahblah" message I usually do with firewall issues, but stranger things have happened. I'll try to view them from home later tonight and see if I can help in any more meaningful way.

Unfortunately I can't see any of your photos, so I can't comment on them to give you specific advice. But since I've seen excellent photos taken on a 300D (which is essentially still a 10D inside), and given this statement of yours "then If I used my flash would wash out the blue sky and make it white" which is so fundamentally wrong as to hurt my head, I'm going to have to go with user error.

 

If you can get those images posted properly, maybe we can point out some of the errors you've likely made and help you out.