lu_yin

It is normal. Try it when the camera is vertical. It is even harder.

Another thing about this lens is that it is really noisy, but that's normal too.

There are more uses for TS lenses than architectural shots. You can really manipuate images by using TS. I played with one a little at a camera store and liked it (it reminded me the old days when I used view cameras), but it's hard for me to spend that much money on one.

50/1.4 is a great lens, but for shoulder head shots it is too short, and too long for group shots. Your subject would be distorted. For head should shots, 85mm is ideal, and for tight face shots, 100mm is a minimum. However, both lenses are too long for group shots. 24-70/2.8 is probably your best bet for what you wanted to do.

What are you shooting? For fully body shot, 35 is probably OK, but will definitely give you weird perspective for torso shots. 24-85 is a good range for portrait shots: 24 is wide enough to have full boxy shots, and 85 is long enough for tight face shots. If you have curtain available, you should be able to shoot with it at f/8 as background blurring is not needed.

 

35/1.4 is not going to blur the background: its hyperfocal distance is only a few feets. 50/1.4 and 50/1.8 are pretty close in terms of sharpness, but 50/1.8 has really ugly bokeh. For your application, a 24-70/2.8 (or 28-70/2.8) is probably the best, although a little more expensive.

How well does graident map work? It seems to get me different result than the greyscale conversion: pictures don't look at flat. But I am not sure if there is a real difference. Does it give you the same result as desaturation tool?

 

Thanks!

The price of the two lenses are so close right now... there is really no point getting the Tamron version.

To be able to display pictures on TV had been my concern as well. However, I think using a DSLR to display image is just way too much trouble, and it is pretty slow.

 

I tried various solutions.

 

1. Uleads DVD Picture Show software allows you burn photo slide show VCD, which all DVD players are able to play, and it even allows you to add sound track. However, it takes so much time to make a VCD like that and it is just not worth it sometimes.

 

2. A dedicated display unit. I think both Delkin and SanDisk sell these. They read CF cards. They costs around $70. Not bad at all.

 

3. Here is what I think is the best solution. Get a Archos Multimedia Jukebox. You can view pics on LCD and on TV. It also may be used to backup your CF cards. I think Nixue Vista and Delkin have something similar, but more expensive and no MP3 feature.

 

Hope that helps.

Hi,

 

I also am a new user--I had 10D for a month and shot less than 10k pics. But here is what I think.

 

When you think about testing, you are really talking about testing the capability of your camera. A sunny day outdoor won't test your camera at all; all cameras can take nice pictures in a sunny nice.

 

Try to do some testing of the camera first. Stay at home and try to shoot pictures at various shutter speed to see how well you can hand hold your camera. Test your camera/lens combo at difference focusing distance to learn the DOF at difference distances. Try different metering and focusing mode to learn how your camera works. Try different white balancing scenarios. Compare the result between RAW and JPG to see what format you want. If you are still bored, get a MTF chart and test lens sharpness at different apertures.

 

These are things you should have done with a new camera before you do any serious shooting, though it is a little boring. If you are at home, you can really try to do some macro shot, though 28-135 is not a true macro lens. And for raining days, you can always try to take BW pictures.

 

Going to the zoo with a new camera is not a very good idea IMHO. You suddenly realize that you need a fast long lens with teleconverter--135mm is just way to short and 5.6 is not fast enough to blur the background. So you go out and get one. Then you realize that you don't use the telephoto lens that often, especially if you are in the city. At least that was my experience with 70-200/2.8.

(1) I think there are always tradeoffs. 10D, like other DSLRs, is dedicated photographic tool, not some cheap jack-of-all-trades.

 

(2) IR would be nice. Canon's wireless kit costs over $200. That's beyound what I can afford.

 

(3) There is not really a panoramic mode for PS digitals. The camera merely juxtapose the last shot frame so you can line up the picture more easily. You still have to "stich" pictures together later with computer software. That goes back to the first point: there is no continuous CCD/CMOS reading for DSLR to offer that feature. And if you are using a SLR, digital or not, it is presumed that you know what you are doing so it really doesn't make much difference whether you have a panoramic mode or not.

Shooting in RAW only makes sense if you have CaptureOne DSLR or something like that. Canon's own software--I think it's called file browser--is a piece of crap. C1 is probably the best tools for converting raw to tiff.

 

There is no reason to convert files from JPG to Tiff: what lost is lost. Just have a backup copy of your JPG before you do editing.

 

If you are shooting in 1600ISO, the size difference between fine jpg and raw is pretty small, so why not just save in RAW?

Just curious: if you convert to high-quality JPG in C1 DSLR, what is its compression level (in terms of PS JPG quality)?

 

Thanks!

Yeah... And if you enable mirror lock up, self timer automatically change to 2 sec.

Actually, 50-500 HSM does AF at the long end--I tried it at the store. I think the lens "fools" the camera somehow. But still, it is a bit slow at the long end...

Actually, you can see your camera serial number from each photo because it is embedded, along with camera model and mfr, etc.

 

Mine came off too. I don't see anything serious with that. Sending in my camera for a couple of weeks just to get the serial number reprint does not seem to make much sense to me, unless you are selling it...

I have been thinking about that too. However, it seems that 10D is incapable of receiving wireless signals. The wirelss controller, as seen on the canon's accessory chart, seems to be both a controller and a receiver.

I do not own a 1Ds, but Tv mode works the same for most SLRs. The camera tries to set an aperture value for the shutter speed that you have chosen. The reason you see 2.8 blinking is that for the fast shutter speed you have set, it is impossible to achieve a good exposure even when your lens is wide open. You might see 32 blinking if you set a slow shutter speed when it is really bright.

 

Perhaps for the situation you descriped, you can set a higher ISO value and tried a slower shutter speed.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Lu

24-70/2.8 has decent optics. Noisy and slow AF though. Zoom ring is hard to turn. 82mm filter size is too big. Also, the distance scale does not seem to be accurate.

I am curious if 10D users use in-camera sharpening or USM in PS. Which is better? When you shoot in 1600 ISO, would the in-camera sharpening produce less noise compared to USM?

 

--Lu

Well, F80/N80 as I understand has spot metering, which Elane 7 does not have. I believe F80 also has seperate FEL and AE lock, which I think is pretty important also. As for lens selection, Canon and Nikon are pretty close as Nikon is coming in with many new lenses with VR. Sigma and Tokina offers many great lenses that are a fraction of Canon/Nikon price. They have the same selection and cost the same for either system.

 

Lu