tien_pham

I could have done as Giampi said, if their agent shows up. Anyway, I already reported to the FBI. Hopefully, they'll do something (with the Interpol), arrest the SOB...

Thanks for the inputs. I was naive. What can I say. Lucky that I did not lose any money. One of the reason that made me to believe is that that scumbag told me he/she wanted to have some sort of insurance on the item. Initially, the scumbag told me that he/she would sent me something much less than $3500, and then it was $3500 when I received the check. In Asian terms, my ancestors still look after me! :-))

I thought Keh locates in Atlanta, GA, not in CA. If it is so, what is the difference b/w NY and GA as far as dealing/order is concerrned?

Recently, I am trying to sell my extra, used NP-E3 batteries for an old 1Ds and

1DM2N cameras that I owned and then sold off. A person with an email address

from UK (jennmill25@yahoo.co.uk) contacted me, and wished to buy a battery.

What happens is that this scumbag sent me a check of $3500.00 (for an item of

$80.00), and requested me to send back the remained portion. After receiving the

check, I immediately deposited it and constantly monitored it to see whether it is

bounced or not. BTW, at this time, I already replied to this scumbag that I already

received his check, and willing to pay him back the remained portion if indeed

he/she overpaid (purposedly?). Today, I found out from my bank that the check is

bounced. So I want to alert the community out there about one of the tactics that

these scumbags use:

 

1. They said they are in urgency, who need the item-put-up-for-sale right away, or

their reputation will be ruined.

 

2. They will intentionally pay you a lot more than the price of the item, and request

the remaied amount. This is how they get your money.

 

3. They don't want you to ship the item; instead they want to pick it up via an

agent, along with a check which has an outstanding amount that you promised to

pay them.

 

4. The check they sent to you will not have any fund in it, if you deposi it.

 

5. The name on the delivery envelope (Chris Jorge) is different than the name on

the check. The name that they request you to send a check in is also quite

different from the other two above.

 

If I sent a check with an amount of $3430.00 as promised, I would have been

screwed!

Get a CF card reader. It is cheap nowadays. You don't have to worry about the camera power/battery for a downloading session.

I thought the focusing belongs mainly to a lens, not. a camera body. Am I wrong?

What if the quantized noise of the 14 bit ADC is more, but they can increase accordingly the signal by amplification, the SNR remains unchanged.

>>I wonder why Canon did not use Li-Ion battery for their 1D series, which belong to a higher line up than the XT's

 

I just checked out the battery type of the 10D. It's Li-Ion. That's interesting. I used to own also a 10D, and the battery drained up very quick (after a full charge) compared with the one from 20D that I also owned. I thought it may be something other than Li-Ion! I was wrong!

>>Just to clear up some misconceptions and mistatements above...

 

>>The Digital Rebel XT (350D) uses the NB-2LH Lithium-Ion battery. It is NOT a NiMH or Ni-Cad battery.

 

>>Canon dSLRs have not all had Li-ion batteries. The 1D series used NiMH batteries until the mkIII's came out

 

This is interesting to know. If so, I wonder why Canon did not use Li-Ion battery for their 1D series, which belong to a higher line up than the XT's. Besides, most of the battery packs from a third party such as Digital Camera Battery (http://www.digitalcamerabattery.com/Batteries.htm) are Ni-MH. They have Li bateries (Li-P,) but not Li-Ion.

>> but I would think for valid data you'd need a device that drains batteries at the same rate/load(?).

 

I think a charger nowadays has a discharging button/feature. This feature used to help NiCad or Ni-MH battery owner to discharge their batteries in prior to charging. This is to minimize the memory effect from the NiCad or Ni-MH battery type.

>>Canon Digital SLR cameras back to the D30 (released in 2000) have used Lithium Ion batteries.

 

It's interesting! Because the battery pack for 1D, 1DM2, 1Ds, 1DsM2 is Ni-MH type, and they use the same battery pack. Right now, 1DM3 and 1DsM3 has Li-Ion battery pack, and the design of these batteries is totally different so that the old pack cannot be used again. I used to own 1Ds (bought in 2003) and 1DM2N (bought in 2005,) and currently own 1DM3 and 1DsM3, so I know about this fact. If the D30, which was released earlier, had a Li-Ion battery, then this battery type should be seen on later models, which did not happen in the case of the 1D or 1Ds camera. Note that, for example, if you search for the NB-L2H battery pack for Rebel Ti right now, it would say NEW Li-Ion on it, e.g., www.digital-camera-batteries.net/canon/nb-2lh.htm. It's a sign of an upgrade.

How do you know that, after spraying compressed air into you camera, the dusts are all gone? Did the guy show you an image taken afterward indicating that the dusts are all gone, compared to that before the act?

That also depends on the battery type. If the Rebel XT you acquired a while ago, likely the battery type is Ni-Cad (NiCad or Nikel Cadmium) type or Ni-MH (Nikel Metal Hydride) type, although I think, most likely, is the Ni-MH type. NiCad type emerges in the early stage of digital cameras, and was taken over by the Ni-MH type afterward. The NiCad or Ni-MH batteries have several significant drawbacks such as memory effect, self discharge, etc., that would limit somewhat the operation of the host. Lately, camera makers like Canon have used different type of battery, batteries using Li-Ion (Lithium Ion) in the electrolyte solution. This Li-Ion battery does not have memory effect, and its self discharge is lower than the NiCad or Ni-MH. This type of battery also has higher storage capacity than the other ones. So if you count the number of shots from a camera using a Ni-MH battery, the result would be different than if the counts have been done with a Li-Ion battery camera.

Lenses stay. Body goes. There is always a better body by the time you're ready to upgrade a body.

Joshua, Mark U is right. What you miss is the circle-of-confusion factor. Lager sensor embraces larger area of the circle of confusion, which determines significantly how sharp a background should be. This is why you see almost P&S cameras have a minimum aperture f/8: They don't need to have smaller aperture in order to have sharpness.

Maybe the school will kick you out after they see the price tags for the gears that you desire for the job. :-))

I think the microlenses have technological changes to accomodate denser pixels. My guess is that Canon would use different (higher) index optics for the microlenses. As well, the microlenses should have greater curvature, more "convex" per se. These features would allow microlenses to "bend" the desired light better into the desired spot. Beside, Canon engineers of course have to figure out the minimum distance from one pixel to another in order to minimize intererence. Anybody has any docs about the microlens technology?

Note that "noise" is not just noise. Any unwanted signal is also considered as "noise".

 

1. Smaller pixel size yields higher signal noise. This is because the wanted signal, the desired light beam, shines onto a less pixel area.

 

2. Denser pixels yields higher noise, because the neighboring signal has higher chance to stray into the desired pixel. This is called interference.

 

3. The camera has lower noise overall compared to their predecessors mainly because of the advance of technology, which can make better integrated circuits, microlenses, etc. For example, if the pixel density is higher, the microlenses have to be better so that they can concentrate light beam only to their pixel, which now sits nearer to each other than before, as much as possible. As well, since the pixels are nearer to each other, the unwanted noise from other pixels can be more easily to leak into a desired pixel via die substrate, interconnect coupling, multiple signal switching, etc. The fact that these phenonmena appear considerably less than before is due to the the down scaling of the technology, e.g., die, feature sizes, etc.

To my understanding:

 

1. The ISO corresponds to the sensitivity of the sensor, e.g., if the ISO increases, the level of sensitivity of the photo diodes increases. This could be done via amplifying the signal gain in photo diodes. Unfortunately, the amplifiers amplify the noise also. (And this noise is different from the quantization noise.)

 

2. Once the signal is quantized from analog to digital signal, the voltage level of a signal is either at power supply (logic 1) or ground (logic 0). At this point, a weak and a strong signal would have the same voltage level, either at power supply or ground. But they differ in their digital words (series of 1's and 0's) Therefore, amplifying the signal after this stage makes no sense, since their voltage level is either power supply (1) or ground (0), there is no more level to amplify the signal.

Pixelation (to me) occurs when a pixel has to cover a larger area. Another word, it has to do with the pixels per area, i.e., density. For a 1DsM3 sensor, the sensor size is aproximatley 36mm x 24mm. The number of pixels ia 21.1 Mpixels. The pixel density is then 21.1M/(36x24) = 24.42 Kpix/mm^2. For the 1DM3 camera, the sensor size is 28.1mm x 18.7mm. The number of pixels is 10.1 Mpixels. The pixel denity is about 10.M/(28.1x18.7) = 19.22 Kpix/mm^2. So, based on the calculation, the 1DsM3 is a bit denser than 1DM3, but not twice. Therefore, you couldn't see half the pixelation from the 1DsM3 compared to 1DM3.

 

Because of the uniformity distribution of the pixels, the number of pixels in high contrast edge vs non high contrast edge should be the same, i.e., all the pixels cannot run into the high contrast area.

Change a different lens to see if the lens-camera body interface is ok, not bent even slightly.

1. Get a multi outlet strip. Plug this strip to the converter, and since there are several outlets, you can use different equipments on the strip.

 

2. Get a double battery charger so that you can charge 2 batteries at once, maximize the charging time.

I would also take the battery type into the equation, for conveniences. Since you have two 30D's, would a 5D use the same battery as that of the 30Ds? (I think so, although I am not too sure.) This is convenient for your wedding shoot, where you have to carry only one type of batteries.

1. Replace a different lens. Take some pix. See if the "hair" is still there. If it is there, likely it's the sensor, not the lens.

 

2. Use a cleaning method with a product such as the Visible Dust brush. Avoid blowing the sensor as much as you can, i.e., it is not effective. Beside, there will highly be a chance that (different) dust getting into the sensor. Methods of cleaning a sensor are described abundantly on the web.

There are mainly 3 things that affect the data being written into a card:

 

1. Camera buffer. If a camera has a large buffer, you are able to shoot more.

 

2. Fast CF card. Fast CF cards will write the data at a faster rate, so that the camera buffer would empty its "shopping card" faster, and thus be available sooner. So with a large buffer and a fast card, you can shoot more ( with larger buffer) and sooner (with fast CFs). How fast you can shoot depends on the burst rate of your camera, not the CF.

 

3. There are other factors such as the speed of the interface between a camera and the CF. This is also a bottle neck of the writing process. If the camera has a large buffer, and it writes data to a fast CF, but the writing/accesability mechanism, the interface, is slow, then having a fast card wouldn't help.

 

So with a small camera buffer, although you have a faster card, it may not help significantly. But getting a faster cards would be a good idea in any case, especially if you plan to upgrade the camera body in the future, which likely to have a larger buffer.