stephen_ratzlaff

Bought an EOS 300D last weekend and have an issue with two (2)

hot/stuck pixels (RED) at all ISO settings. Most pronounced at

ISO1600, but also easily seen at ISO200. Can also see at ISO100 but a

bit dimmer.

What's the normal practice, do I return it for exchange or let Canon

remap the CMOS.

Also, if remap is possible, can this be done locally by authorized

Canon repair center or is a trip to Canon NJ or CA service centers

required?

As a side note, since there will be stuck/hot pixels developing over

time, why doesn't Canon make a utility which lets the end-user do this?

Sure would cut down on service and returns.

BR

Granted, the technical achievements or capabilities COULD have improved more, or faster, in the last 10-15 years or so.

However, that being said, look at the significant price reductions every two years or so related to equipment with greater capabilities.

CMOS vs. CCD is also pushing this as well as CMOS is cheaper/easier to produce.

I can tell you from looking at large format scanning backs and single shot backs a few years back, that the price of, for example, the Canon 1Ds is a bargain.

Also from being involved with early CCD astrophotography, I can tell you that the price reductions, also with significant gains in capability, have been a boon for amateur astronomers.

Bear in mind that higher demand will in turn prompt manufacturers to produce better and cheaper digital devices. Early on, the higher demand will come with a significant price tag, but as manufacturing techniques and processes catch up with demand, we should all see significant improvements (i.e. higher quality at cheaper prices) in the devices.

My feeling is , we're just now, beginning to see this with digital photographic devices.

just got a 6100 which supports WAP 1.2? and the browser only supports WAP pages so my favorite Photo.net forums don't appear in the WAP served pages.

With the full HTML support of the 9290, this isn't an issue as the web pages appear just as they do on a PC. But, with the 6100, I can only get WAP supported pages.

I like to browse when out shopping with my wife or when waiting for appointments, etc. to kill the time.

I guess with WAP 2.x browsers this will be a moot point as most of the HTML is supported, but with WAP 1.x devices they can only get certain WAP pages.

Oh well.

Yup, I also be interested to see what the WAP traffic is like on Photo.net, maybe, if it's not too much, and the pages will simply disappear. Or ... if it shows a steady increase, maybe you guys (Bob and Brian) can lobby for more supported pages.

Hey Bob or Brian, how come the Canon forum doesn't appear in the WAP

served pages?

Only forum pages served in WAP are:

General Question (archived) but stated as moderated

General Question (non-archived) but stated as not moderated.

Medium Format

Nature

And one other test page which errors out.

Any idea if the Canon forum will be added to the list of WAP served

pages?

I just bought the "Super Jumbo" sized windshield shades at Target for my wife's minivan last week.

My vehicle uses the meager "Regular" size shades.

There are two of these "Super Jumbo" beasts (3'x4'in size maybe). Try folding these up in the confines of the front seat of a minivan! Hey, you can't see but I'm wildly flailing my arms about here.

Anyhow, they're silver on one side and black on the other, and after looking at the size and construction, I'm thinking they'll be performing double duty from time to time.

Anyhow, they're around $11.

If you have a small digital camera you can try to photograph Mars via eyepiece projection and get pretty decent results if you make an inexpensive mount for your digi-cam.

Go here for more info on Astrophotography and other info on telescopes.

http://www.weasner.com/etx/menu.html

Mike's site is geared a bit for the Meade ETX products, but there is also a wealth of info regarding astronomy in general and the info provided can pertain to any brand of telescope.

As I have a Meade ETX-90RA scope (inexpensive) this is the site I found most useful, but I'm sure there are a plethora of sites with astrophotography info out there.

There are also a lot of tips on how to make gear.

Regards

After you perform a clean boot from a powered off machine, open your task manager and see what processes are running. You might even print this screenshot out, you'll probably have to scroll the process list down and do at least two separate screen captures to get all the normally running processes.

Print this out, and the next time you execute something which causes the OS to not see your pictures, compare which processes are normally running and see if there is some defunct or ghost process which is running which is causing your problem. It could be something simple like one of Oly's processes which isn't shutting down properly or any number of things like some background task or driver issue or some rampant process not playing nice.

Also, you may wish to temporarily shut down tasks which are running on you task bar, you know the ones, the ones which seems to perminently install themselves on your PC without asking if you wish to launch them at startup. Look at the lower right on your toolbar to see what's running in the background. Laptops are notorious for this for some reason the mfg.'s always install a bunch of unecessary crap to run. A lot of applications also assume you want to run them at startup too. You can also go to your various startup directories and delete the links from there. Some apps have the disable option so buried it's hard to find.

You can play around with stopping unneeded applications one at a time then testing your transfer to see if one of them is interferring with your Oly transfer application.

Regards

The Kiron 2x converter is pretty good. I had this and the 70-210/f4 (or 70-200/f4) Kiron lens around 14-15 years or so ago. Together it was pretty sharp, also used the converter with the Minolta MD 50mmf/1.7 ??? (I think it was f/1.7) lens and a couple of other Minolta lenses and these were pretty sharp too.

Regards

See here:

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0054aB

BR

but can no longer find the info. Probably went into the unarchived forum here at photo.net, but can't remember for sure where I posted this info.

Anyhow, to answer your questions.

1.) Backlight for the external LCD -> NO, there is no backlight. Only the internal spot meter display is lit (orange color). Yep, no backlight on the external LCD panel is really missed.

2.) The FM 6 doesn't have support for reading/calculating multiple flash readings. Too bad because this is a nice feature, but you can always work the math yourself.

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Also a couple of other things different between the new FM 6 and the FM 5:

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3.) No Auto mode like the FM 5. No great loss here as I never used the Auto mode on the FM 5 anyhow.

4.) Analyze (flash to ambient ratio) feature of FM 6 only has 4-5 segments (depending on how you interpret the user's manual) instead of 10 like the FM 5. Not really that big of a deal. Except the FM6 manual really doesn't explain this worth a crap. One place states there are 5 segments if you include the flash symbol, then the example shows the four segments and states each is roughly 25%, which basically contradicts what was stated prior with the percentages given to the flash symbol only then the flash symbol + 1 segment, two segments and so on.

5.) FM 6 will NOT accept the optional Booster II unit like the FM5. The only optional accessories are a longer sync cord and the optional flat diffusor (spelling???).

But all is not lost, the FM 6 spot meter does meter down to a lower EV than either the Sekonic L-508 or L-608. AND ... the Latitude function is really quite nice, and it's user configurable.

Overall, the only things I miss are the backlight of the external LCD display panel and the multi-pop capability.

Regards

the Minolta 5400 at 5400ppi to provide scans with better tonality than older scanners' scans at 4000ppi.

Again, this is one of the reasons to use large format films as well, the higher pixel density of the 5400ppi scanner should, in theory, provide the same advantage.

Also, as the mfg.'s introduce newer, better models, you can probably count on the speed to improve. I.e., the 5400 scanner scanning at 4000ppi will most likely be faster due to improvements in design and scanning algorithms, etc.

Nope, the booster will not work and there is no port on the FM6 in which to plug in the booster.

There are only two accessories listed in the manual, the optional flat diffusor and the optional long flash sync cord. That's it.

line:

... such as 25% for the 5 elements ...

should read:

... such as 20% for the 5 elements ...

Sorry can't compare the Flash Meter VI (FM6) to the L-608 but I can compare it to the Flash Meter V (FM5) and the L-508.

I've only had the FM6 for a couple of days now, so this is just my preliminary feelings so far.

THE GOOD:

1.) FM6 spot meter has better low light sensitivity (both flash and ambient) than the L-508 (from what I understand the L-608 is the same in this regard as the L-508). Also the spot meter reading is displayed in the viewfinder (L-508 lacks this, but L-608 has this). The viewfinder is backlit so it's easy to see (again, the L-508 lacks this, but L-608 has this).

2.) The latitude feature looks really promising, especially since the shoulder and toe regions are completely user comfigurable.

3.)The latitude function in the spot meter mode is really neat and shows the delta/difference between a baseline reading and the new reading in +/- EV's. BTW, this also works in a continuous manner as long as the meter's measuring button is depressed.

4.) The alt functions are really easy to set and reset and don't require a DIP switch like the FM5.

-----------------------

THE BAD:

1.) The FM6 does not have a backlight for the external LCD display like both the FM5 and L-508 do.

2.) The FM6 doesn't allow for multi-pop flash readings (i.e. it doesn't have that mode at all to automatcially calculate multi-pop readings) like both the FM5 and L-508 do.

3.) The analyze function only has (either 4 or 5 graphical elements depending on how you interpret the manual) compared to the direct readings of the FM5. The L-508 doesn't analyze flash and ambient simultaneously (or at least it doesn't do it easily in a graphical form).

I say 4 or 5 elements because the owner's manual for the FM6 is pitiful describing this feature. Read the manual and you'll see what I mean. There are four elements + the flash symbol. But, instead of each element representing 20% (5 elements) or 25% (4 elements) of the flash to ambient mix like one would expect, the manual states something like the flash bar alone represents 0-16%, the flash bar + 1st analysis element represents 17-41%, the 2nd element represents 42-58%, 3rd element represents 59-84% with the 4th element representing 85-100%. I'm going from memory here as I don't have the manual in front of me right now. But, from what you can see each element doesn't represent a uniform percentage such as 25% for the 5 elements (flash bar + four elements) or 25% (for the 4 elements).

4.) The spot meter optics on the rear of the meter (battery compartment side) could be protected better. Actually a sliding plastic door would have been perfect here. I keep getting finger prints on mine.

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WISH LIST:

NOTE - There is no easy way to recall a specific stored memory reading (i.e. you can't scroll through the readings stored in memory). It would be nice to be able to scroll through the stored memory readings with a button depress and wheel action.

"... flash durations SHORTER than 1/30,000th of a second ..."

Sorry for the confusion.

I suspect this would only be the case if you were measuring the lowest output of the flash (i.e. lowest output usually means the fastest or smallest duration depending on how you look at it). The lowest output could mean flash durations of greater than 1/30,000th of a second.

Remember that most of the time, the GN is calculated under ideal conditions by the manufacturer, so ... what this means is that the GN may only be true under an ideal test setup.

What you should do is make sure the meter's sensor (I'd retract the white sphere if it's possible on the 358, I don't know if it's the same as my 508 which allows the user the retract the sphere) and make sure the meter's sensor (the white sphere) is in the brightest part of the flash's coverage. The coverage portable flash units can be pretty non-uniform so this will take some investigation on your part to see how uniform the coverage is from your particular model (BTW, all zoom head models I've ever seen exhibit this problem, regardless of the manufacturer).

Also be resigned to the fact that you may never get the same exact readings the manufacturer claims due to what I mentioned above about the ideal setup. For all you know, their readings may have been with the flash unit and meter placed into a highly refective environment which reflects more light than your testing environment.

Good luck.

I had no problems running the GIMP with 30-40MB scans from 35mm, only when I tried files from 4x5 in the 330+MB range.

AT that time I only had 512MB RAM, so another 1GB of RAM probably could have helped with the 330+MB files, but in the meanwhile I bought PS6 then upgraded to PS7 and haven't used the GIMP again.

Regards

I used it for a while when I first bot my XP system, But had too many problems with large images while using the GIMP.

I don't know what version it was (the one I downloaded was from either 2001 or 2000 timeframe).

I found the memory management to be pretty bad as it'd crash with 2400ppi scans of 4x5 (around 330+MB).

Anyhow, I found that even PS Elements 1 worked better with scans this size.

Regards

your sense of loss at the depreciation it'll take when the next new wonder toy is available in 6 months with twice the capablilites at half the price.

I sure love this market, I'm gonna have a DSLR sooner than I thought, heck at this rate I don't have to spend any more money on any new scanners. WHOO HOO !!!

C'mon Canon, just give 'em away, I'll even buy the new wonder lenses to go with the new toys.

Hehehe, can't wait the $1k barrier is close, ooooowwwww, sooooo close.

Spain Calitrol S.A. 0034-93-25240

ELBASA S.A. 0034-93-7771251

Hope this helps.

Have you used (or have info on) the dual Athlon MBs which use the Athlon XP processors instead of the MP processors?

I've only seen one of these, but don't know how it rates against the ones which use the "official" AMD MP procs.

Any info?