michael_lopez3

The National Geographic photo services web site is at:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/labs/index.html

I tried Chrome in Washington, DC, which has a good reputation as a

pro lab. Expensive!! Staff brusque. Never went back.

<p>

You might try National Geographic, which (I read on Photo.net some

years ago) has a film lab open to the public. I don't know about

prices, or whether they do slide-to-11x14 prints.

<p>

My solution was mail order. I like two places: MysticColorLab.com, a

mass-market lab with excellent quality control; and AandI.com, a pro

lab with much lower prices than Chrome, and helpful staff that can be

contacted via phone or e-mail. A and I have mailers for prepaid

negative and slide processing at an attractive price, sold by

themselves in 5-packs, and by B&H (bhphoto.com) in any quantity you

want.

<p>

Mail order service has problems. As you doubtless have noticed, mail

service to the DC area has been very slow since the anthrax killings.

If the US Postal Service starts irradiating mail as a precaution,

undeveloped film sent through the mail will be destroyed.

I'd like to reinforce a point made earlier, in passing. The Law of

Dimishing Returns applies optically as well as monetarily, in the case

of teleconverters. A 2x converter gives significantly poorer results

than a 1.4x converter. Even if the converters are optically perfect,

the 2x doubles the size of any defects in the main lens, while the

1.4x enlarges the defects' size by "merely" 40%. In addition, the 1.4x

cuts the effective aperture by 1 stop (only half the light going

through the main lens reaches the film), while the 2x cuts the

effective aperture by 2 stops (only one quarter of the light going

through the main lens reacheas the film). In short, 1.4x converters

are significantly less harmful to image quality.

A nice aspect of an SLR system, as you have discovered, is that you

can replace only part of it at a time as your needs evolve and your

budget permits.

<p>

Among normal lenses, consider the 50mm 1.8. It is a very sharp lens,

selling for a small fraction of the cost of the 50/1.4. On the down

side, the 1.8 has a noisy autofocus motor which does not allow full

time manual focus (FTM). An FTM lens like the 50/1.4 allows you to

focus manually even if its switch is set to autofocus. The current

50/1.8 Mark II has a plasticy feel and no depth of field scale. But

if that bothers you, you can buy the older, metal-barreled, (crudely)

DOF-scaled original 50/1.8 on the used market. Both a second-hand,

older-version 50/1.8 and a new 50/1.8 Mark II cost around $85 in the

United States, compared to a cost of $365 for the 50/1.4 lens.

Without question, the 50/1.4 is better optically and more solidly

constructed than the 50/1.8. But given that the 50/1.8 is already

very sharp, and sturdy enough even in the plastic version, one

certainly can question whether the 50/1.4 is worth 4 times the cost.

<p>

Among general-purpose zooms, the Canon 28-105 has a good range and is

a good buy.

<p>

Another way to save with little loss in quality is to purchase a

420-EX flash instead of a 550-EX. Or you can buy a Canon-compatible

flash made by another manufacturer, such as Vivitar, Sunpak, Metz

(expensive, however), or Promaster (a brand that may not be sold in

the UK). The important thing is to buy a tilt-and-swivel flash, which

allows you to bounce the light off a white ceiling for vastly improved

indoor shots, whether the camera is held horizontally (with the flash

head tilted) or vertically (with the flash head swiveled). Any

tilt-and-swivel flash is likely to incorporate the two most useful

advanced features, high-speed synch and second-curtain synch. But

don't let the salesman persuade you to buy a tilt-only flash.

<p>

Some things, such as tilt and swivel, are worth their extra cost. If

you often take pictures without using a tripod, Image Stabilization

(IS) really works, allowing you to use slower shutter speeds and still

get a sharp image with a hand-held camera. So if your budget allows,

you might spend about $500 on the Canon 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom which

comes with IS, instead of spending about $250 on the Canon 28-105mm

f/3.5-4.5 without IS. Among telephoto zooms, the 70-200 f/4 L is

superb. However, the less good 75-300mm f/4-5.6 IS costs less,

provides image stabilization, and reaches to a greater focal length:

it may well be good enough for your purposes. To meet a still tighter

budget, the 75-300 without IS is quite modestly priced.

<p>

Be aware that zooms tend to suffer from linear distortion, especially

at their extreme focal lengths. I own the 28-135 IS and find that its

pronounced barrel distortion at 28mm makes it unsuited for shots of

buildings (indoors or out). However, zooming it out to 35mm restores

decently straight lines.

<p>

I agree with Isaac that when (and if) you replace the Rebel, either

the current Elan 7/7E, or a less expensive second-hand Elan II/II-E,

would be logical choices.

Linear distortion includes ( ) barrel, and ) ( pincushion, and an

unusual wavy kind -- alternating between barrel and pincushion --

which Popular Photography calls "moustache" distortion. Field

curvature means that if you focus the image of a surface parallel to

the film (a painting, for example) so that it is precisely in focus at

the center of the film, the precisely focused part of the image will

bend away from the film as you move away from the center. In other

words, the exactly focused part is like the surface of a bowl, rather

than lying flat along the surface of the film from edge to edge.

Lenses used to copy flat subjects (e.g. a painting, document, or film

slide) need to have a flat field at close focus, to maintain image

sharpness from edge to edge.

In www.chassim.com and www.photim.com (two entrances to the same

website) you'll find detailed descriptions of this camera in the

"Info" section. The text is in French (since the site belongs to a

French photography magazine), but much of it is easy to figure out

even if you don't know French, especially if you have a French-English

dictionary.

Birdsasart.com, the web site of Arthur Morris, is certainly worth a

visit; it has an FAQ on lenses for bird photography. He especially

likes the Canon 400/5.6L for hand-held photography of birds in flight,

and the Canon 100-400L for its versatility. For a discussion of

the choice between those two lenses, see this thread from the

telephoto lenses section of photo.net's archived Nature forum:

<p>

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=001QOF

PS: You needn't feel obligated to buy lenses and flash units made by

the camera manufacturer.

Well, I think counting the number of lenses in each system may not be

the best way to choose. Look at the lenses in each system; look at

their prices in (for example) bhphotovideo.com; and consider whether

you are likely to buy the lenses in one system that are unavailable in

the other. Many of the additional lens choices are at the fringes:

$1,300 tilt and shift lenses, long telephotos costing $4,000 and up,

etc. If you can't get lenses that YOU think you might want to buy

over the next five years or so, that would be relevant.

<p>

You might go to a camera store and see how the two feel in your hands.

Is the viewfinder easy to see? Go through the motions of taking a

photograph. Does one camera seem easier to use than the other?

<p>

You still may have a hard time chosing. Take comfort in the fact that

either camera is capable of taking excellent photographs. The choice

of lenses is more important than the choice of camera bodies.

(Hint: as Jim said, avoid cheap kit zoom lenses). Today's

excellent films may make a bigger contribution to quality than

variation among lenses. And the main determinent of the quality of

the photograph is the photographer. To improve the quality of the

photographer, you might want to read some of the books recommended in

Photo.net (e.g., do a search on "books" to find titles).

<p>

Really, it's hard to go wrong in choosing a camera. Any 50mm lens is

optically great. With a little care, you can get a fine (not great,

but plenty good enough) 28-105mm or so zoom. Even if you get a

28-200mm zoom, often derided on photo.net, you still are likely to be

pleased with the photographs it produces (and if you are not pleased,

go back to the part about improving the photographer by reading a good

book).

<p>

Oh, and if you intend to take flashlit pictures indoors, get a tilt

and swivel flash (don't settle for tilt only!!)

I'll make the same grouchy comment here as I made on the unmoderated

Q&A thread that got zapped.

<p>

For the price, you'd think they could afford to include a hot shoe.

I have not used them. Note, however, that you have to buy both the

Zoerk adapter AND a medium-format lens. Thus the total price is of the

same order of magnitude as buying a 35mm-camera-brand tilt-and-shift

lens.

<p>

Arsat, an East European manufacturer, makes a tilt-and-shift

lens, available in a few formats, that is priced significantly lower

than the camera-brand t&s lenses. A Photo.net thread archived a few

years ago discussed the Arsat, but nobody had actually used it, so it

was all speculation.

<p>

Popular Photography published articles on T&S techniques and devices

in August 2000. They talk about the Zoerk, but not about the Arsat.

Concerning the choice of a flash for Canon cameras, see

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000lQJ&topic_id=2

3&topic=photo%2enet