walang_pangalan

I got an "Err 99" a few days ago with a 1D MkII. As the say, "Shit happens."

<i>What's up with that?</i>

 

<p>Well, I think it means you'll spend $500 for a used shutter, instead of $350 for a new one.

Yes.

Well, if you are wondering about this, you are already regretting it.

 

But if decisions have to be made, just do it: get rid of the 100/2.8, 200/2.8, 28-135. Plan for a 16-35/2.8 (sell the 17-85 at that time) and a 500/4 ("aim high", as the ads say). Use some of the money from whatever you sell to get a 2x extender. The 400/5.6 is probably not worth your attention, as you already have one with the 300/4 + 1.4x. The 300/4 + 2x is a reasonable combination, especially for near-macro.

I tried inverting the column on a tripod a long time ago ... and quickly realized the benefits of a tripod where the legs fold flat. Apparently I'm not alone either:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00LjHC

 

(See Edward Ingold's comment re: inverted column use).

 

So I second Mr. White's Gitzo/Benro suggestion along these lines.

If you want a place to store stuff, any duffle will do. If you need to get "quick access" to stuff, you need a belt system of some kind.

<i>Now this may be unusually bad luck.</i>

 

<p>Change "may" to "is" and you'll be more right. I have bought some $10k+ in optics and equipment from Canon over the years, and literally <b>none</b> of it had any problem whatsoever out of the box. (I managed to break the IS in a 300/4, some year+ out of the box.) Other people I know are in the same situation, both Canon and Nikon. If I knew anyone well enough that uses Minolta (etc) equipment, I would expect similar.

 

<p>As others are saying above (and demonstrated yet again!), it's very easy to bitch, moan and complain for whatever reason. Even legitimate reasons. Making noise is very simple, and plays directly into the tendency of others to join in the "Ain't It Awful" session. The FUDster's game can even be played by people who, well, don't own the hardware. Fun for the whole family! To take the slightest transgression and proceed to "deceive an entire generation." How's that for hyperbolic hyperbole?

 

<p>Our original interrogator bought a $400 lens. If he tests it by the methods suggested above, he'll probably find some reason to complain about it. Does this make it a "good copy" or a "bad copy" or squarely in the mean? Few people own the necessary sample of lenses -- talking about 10, but preferably far more -- to make a definitive claim one way or another. (And let's be clear: a meta-analysis based on a set of internet anecdotes would be less than helpful.) All you can do is as I noted above: is it a lemon? This will be frankly obvious without any detailed testing, and is the reason why things like warranties exist.

 

<p>Finally, I'd suggest that people who are going to do this kind of post-purchase fretting simply buy the best lenses they can, not inexpensive so-called "consumer" stuff. Money does talk when it comes to optics.

 

<p>P.S. It strikes me that Canon/Nikon/etc, reading this kind of thing, may even begin to fight back. Tired of dealing with people abusing the warranty mechanism to "cherry pick", they could add a little rider to their sales agreement that says they have the right to recall your lens within the warranty period, and have it robustly tested by some third party. If it scores high enough above their manufacturing norm, you'll be hit with an extra 50% on the price. Alternatively, maybe this third party will just go into the business of lens testing for money. Yes! And it will be fronted on the internet as "www.lens-fretters.com"! For $100 (and peace of mind), they put it up on the bench and directly measure the MTF and all. You get a nice binder with the glossy report inside. Maybe a wall plaque too. (Now I'm getting nasty; too early in the morning I guess).

<i>What about a solar powered battery charger?</i>

 

<p>It's the usual "other" advice, but it turns out to be more of a pain than just carrying enough previously charged batteries. Change the parameters from 10 days to 100 days, and solar begins to make a lot more sense ... but only if done in a big way:

 

http://solarwares.com/unisolarpac.html

 

If you avoid piddle-power units, you avoid disaster. Ditto for less robust equipment.

Well, at least you have a year to test options and try the equipment.

 

But I suspect that you'll find that a sufficient number of BP511's to last 10 days will be the best choice. At 80g of mass, you can probably take 10 or more without much hardship; that will last several thousand frames.

<i>So in summary I use it for seeing what is well out of focus.</i>

 

<p>It had a legitimate purpose in the analog film era. It seems so long ago ...

 

<p>Nowadays, I find it much more efficient to just take a picture and view it on the LCD.

There is a truism that works in real life that goes like this:

 

"If you hear it on the news, you don't have to worry about it."

 

So when crocodiles are reported to be in the sewers, then death by crocodile is probably the last thing you need to concern yourself with. If avian flu is being screamed from the headlines, chances are pretty good that you won't be expiring any time soon of an H5N1 infection.

 

Basically, newspapers do not make money on good news, non-events. FUD, argument, debate - especially over the most trivial, useless, things - sells. So do breasts above the fold.

 

What lesson can be learn from this?

 

"If you heard about it on the internet, you've got bigger problems to be bothered about."

 

In other words: relax. You bought a ~$400 lens. If you have a lemon, it will be obvious. And it's not going to be the best lens in the world, no matter how many times you have Canon calibrate it.

The LM317's are linear voltage regulators. Asking them to convert 12V into ~8 will put the excess 4V across some resistor: it may burn off as much power as an inverter feeding the "CA PS700" adapter (for the XTi). One suspects that the inverter may in fact be more efficient.

 

Anyways, I've recently taken to doing exactly this sort of thing with my 1D2. I picked up a gel-cell based "portable power" thing from a local hardware store. The 1D2 came with its own AC adapter. I had already chopped off the AC part for a previous experiment, and connected it straight to the cig-lighter port. It will probably last days. Note that this works because the 1D2's battery is, quite conveniently, 12V.

Oh yeah, and for the day or day stuff, you don't need to get shower-caps and the like. Just keep the lens hood on all the time. Find a lens case that fits when the hood is attached.

After about 2 years of a thin veneer of crud buildup, I finally had to clean the surface of my 500/4 late last year.

 

My usual maintenance involves removing the UV filter, blowing it, and holding it under a tap with some detergent, and then on to the finale: PecPad's and fluid.

 

The 500/4 has no UV filter though. So I just ad-libbed: I blew off whatever dust could be blown away with a jet of air powered by my own lungs, followed by a brief wipe with the edge of a t-shirt, and then came the serious elbow grease, PecPad's, fluid and a fair amount of time (the surface to clean is quite large).

 

The moral of this story, like all lens-cleaning stories is simple:

 

0. If you think the lens is dirty, it probably isn't.

 

1. Do not clean the lens.

 

"The first rule about fight club, is don't talk about fight club!" These are the most important rules. Just don't clean the lens. Watch TeeVee. Pick fluff out of your belly-button. Attend a brothel, go gambling, inebriate yourself with expensive liquor ... anything but clean that lens!

 

But eventually reality can not be denied, so:

 

2. If the lens is in fact filthy, then you probably need to clean it. When this day comes, abandon all previous reservations, hang-ups and squeamishness! After taking care that your cleaning surfaces are not in fact #3 sandpaper, aggressively attack the lens. Let loose that clean-freak within you! If you proceed from removing big stuff to little stuff, it is quite difficult to hurt the lens.

<i>Having said that, I wouldn't be 100% confident that all cameras could handle a non-standard cluster size.</i>

 

<p>Cameras using special-case FAT code would probably explode as soon as someone inserts an "alien" card, and this would probably be among the first test performed. This suggests any camera worth owning (ie, the ones made by the millions) are all running cluster-size independent code, perhaps even from a single or small set of sources. In any case, that my 1D2 can display (and add to the set of) JPEG images from a Pentax-formatted P&S camera suggests at least Canon has their ass in gear.

 

<p>As for cluster-size: the 1D2 uses 32k clusters for <=2GB cards. It (stupidly) uses 4k clusters for >2GB cards. On the list of things to try is in fact to format FAT32 with 32k clusters via Linux: I'm expecting image flush times to improve.

 

<p>Robin Sibson notes: <i>It appears that formatting a card in the camera either places or leaves all sorts of visible or invisible 'stuff' on it, and is not the same operation as a standard re-format on a computer.</i>

 

<p>This is true. The camera will first initialize the device to an empty filesystem, and then creates a standard 'DCIM' and further device-specific sub-directories. Some cameras are reputed to make "hidden" files, clusters, etc, but near as I can tell, no Canon or Pentax equipment plays such silly games.

Buy the best.

 

Buy it once.

 

http://www.bythom.com/support.htm

 

If you can't initially afford the best, then make do with the absolute worst or close to it, and save aggressively. Consider it a test of your seriousness. Avoid the train ride of the middle.

Your symptoms are non-specific (fuse? internal connectors? electronics failure?). It sounds like you are headed for the nearest Canon repair center:

 

http://www.usa.canon.com/opd/controller?act=OPDGetServiceAct

 

Canon has similar networks in Canada, Europe, and so on.

Like a question asked yesterday: how can an answer to this possibly improve your photography?

 

Nevertheless, you can get an idea as to the answer by perusing the question from a USA standpoint:

 

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/madeusa.shtm

 

Similar law and regulation exists in most places. Even Japan. So did the tiny plastic or metal parts get made in Japan? The integrated circuits? The raw materials for the glass? Did the gas used to melt the glass? The uranium in the nuclear power plant that lit -- in part -- the manufacturing facility?

As you've exhausted your options, it's time to take it in to Canon.

Never, ever, delete camera generated images.

Is there a question on the table? Also, in the first thread you reference, you say you can sell a good optic without any regrets at all. (In fact, I got the impression your lens set is subject to a fair amount of churn.) So: why not just solve your problem by selling <b>both</b> lenses? At the least you won't have to conduct any more tests! And out of curiosity, however did you come to own both a /2.8 and a /4? Why are those reasons no longer operative?

 

<p>Trying to read between the lines in all this, I sense you are looking for a reason to ditch the 2.8. Whatever floats the boat, but I'll say again: never sell good optics. In general: <b>buy the best, buy it once</b>, and move on to things like taking pictures. This can be expensive, and may take some time to gather up the needed money, but when you have the best available doubts, questions, and other outbursts of angst are kept to a minimum. It helps steady the aim...

<i>Mr Geenspun took his EOS 3 into some white water a few years ago.</i>

 

<p>More than likely Mr. Greenspun, like everyone else, used a pelican case. I would happily take my 1D2, 70-200/2.8, etc, down class III or worse rivers in such a case -- I've done it before with other cameras without a problem, and like Mr. Holland, I encourage you to do the same. Talk to the guides: you aren't the first one.

 

<p>For on-raft/on-kayak stuff, you'll need to buy a cheap waterproof P&S. Wrapping a large camera with a waterproof case will pose a danger, to yourself, other people and/or the camera, unless the camera is mounted to the boat or something. I use a Pentax Optio, on a break-away neck-strap which can be dropped onto the skirt at a moments notice, and have observed people with wrapped video cameras duct-taped to the bow of their kayaks. (It's interesting, if a bit erratic, footage.)

No, this is not the correct forum. You need to speak with a lawyer that practices intellectual property law.

This is crap on the sensor.

It looks like overcorrected spherical aberration; see http://www.vanwalree.com/optics/bokeh.html