rob_murray

Those Tamrons are pretty good, get an adapter for one of them and try it before you buy for them all. Good luck

You want to spend only $300 average to put on a camera that cost $3500? This is like putting bicycle tires on a ferrari.

You would have been better off putting the money into glass

and a cheaper body...

Sure would be nice if there was a photoshop tool called "Doughnut Removal for Mirror Lenses".

Forget the cheap set of 3 closeup lenses, quality is not that good. You can get great results with Canon 500D or Nikon 5t/6t 2 element lenses. The are much cheaper than a real macro lens ($450) easier to use than extension tubes(loose no light) and have amazing quality.

Tell us exactly which tamron lenses they are. If they are the real good ones like the Macro 90, 300 F2.8, 400 F4, 80-200 F2.8, 17mm or anything marked SP it would be nice to use them. If they are just average lenses, I would not bother.

Its quality is worse than any of your other lenses..The older 70-210 USM lens is much better but as you find harder to find. The 70-210 F4L

USM at $600 is your next step up.

1) will operate FULLY without batteries (including light meter!)

 

Then you would need a selenium style meter, these were not good in low light even when they were new 30 years ago, long since discontinued as built into the camera.

You could use print film and make a cheat sheet like used to be printed on the boxes of film to estimate exposures.

For needle type readouts you will have look at the cameras from about 20 years ago to find one that suits you. You will have to have it cleaned, lubed and light seals put in to make it reliable. You may also have to adapt modern batteries to power the needle meter if you choose to use it.

For film the stylus would be a nice small camera, for digital I would go with the Fuji F10, nearly no lag or turn on time and iso up to 1600 speed.

The digital zoom feature was probably activate on the 620, and you thought it was part of the optical zoom. Within limits the digital

zoom works well on the A620. If you shoot video a lot and want the longer reach go for the S2Is, if you want better quality pictures and

shoot less video go for the A620.

Fuji F10/F11 or if you want Canon A610/A620.

My standard answer again Canon A610/A620 or Fuji F10/F11.

Plenty of reviews on both of these on the internet.

At least try the alcohol cleaning of ALL contacts, the ones where the back of the camera attaches too, the contacts for the lens and for the battery. Double check with a voltmeter your battery or swap in a known good one. Just a little liqiud on a q tip will do, dip it in alcohol, remove some on a paper towel and swab the contacts.

Contact the folks who fixed it last also. If you have a receipt they may have made a note on it as the the problem.

The bogen Digi series is sturdy but lightweight and will hold what you have and more. Comes with a permanent ballhead on it and a good

carry bag all for about $100.

Stick with what you have its a good lens. The Sigma may need to be rechipped to even work on your EOS body (depends on model) A friend has a Sigma 70-210 F2.8 its broken, sigma will not fix it, no parts

also no chips left to make it work with the newer cameras.

you might look at the 70-200 F4 L USM for $600 too.

With an SLR he had access to macro shots, could use polarizers easier, could use graduated filters, He shot slides so in camera

cropping with zooms would have helped. For wildlife forget a rangefinder. He often took a light consumer Nikon body and small

zoom lens on his harder climbs to save weight. Also he could use

very wide lenses on his SLR if needed. Maybe the 100% viewfinder

helped with his SLR.Plus he could buy that whole arsenal of bodies

and lenses for the price of 1 leica body and a normal lens...

He did a lot of night shooting with his Nikons which made it easy.

Digital cameras these days are probably fairly simple inside compared to the older mechanical cameras. You have only a sensor, shutter, mirror, and electronics. Pretty much if one part is broken you replace it and your done. Thats an over simplification really. On the old cameras you might have a dozen gears, springs, levers, pawls, rachets and a hundred other small parts. Most of the old techs came out of the military training schools for camera repair. Start with some old cameras from thrift stores and check out www.kyphoto.com/classics/forum/

No one is going to hire you to just work on digital cameras, there are millions of older cameras that are being repaired. Thats how I learned how to do work on my own cameras.

I will also say the Canon 22-55 USM lens for under $100. Stopped down

to F8 I have gotten very good shots from it.

Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM. I heard that this lens was horrible though

 

You will find the 75-300 sharp at the 75-200 range with sharpness

falling off towards the long end.

Fuji F10/F11 with its high "film" speed up to 1600 will do the job.

You have a camera now since you are taking photo classes, its probably a film camera. Use that until you know what you need camera and lens wise.

 

So basically I want a digital SLR that shoots great portraits.

 

Well the camera is the tool the portrait subject,lighting, background are under your control..

 

Also I will be doing allot of my pictures outdoors so I want to be able to see the monitor really well.

 

On DSLRS you only see the pic in the monitor after you take it.

 

All the cameras mentioned here will do a great job it you do your part. You are emphasising sharpness but most portraits are not really

that sharp on purpose. All these cameras and lenses cost money expect to lay out for camera and 2 lenses, flash,software,etc about $2,000 minimum.

The A610 is not a full blown movie camera so expect some limitations.

But, the digital zoom can be used with the movie mode on the A610.

That red panel sure sticks out too far, I had all the parts when it broke and epoxyied it back together, never broke the wide panel tho.

Some things come to mind, Sturdy tripod, Mirror lockup or cable release, proper focus, hyperfocal focusing, quality filters not cheap ones, proper lens hoods.

I am using a Sandisk 256 card for over a year in a nikon and canon A610. Never a problem.

 

The card dealer says he has sold 200 from this batch with no other complaints and says "Sounds to me like a compatability issue."

 

Hmm, bought off Ebay I bet...Call sandisk with card in hand and talk to them. They did have a bad batch of these at one time if I recall

correctly.

m42 is screw mount, K is bayonet mount, you need a kmount to EOS adapter