yanglee

Go on a trip and make some photographs, which may tell you what you still lack, if you

lack anything. Best.

This is my personal experience. First, don't specifically look for dust if it is not affecting

what you are doing. When it does matter, use a bulb blower like the hurricane blower

helps in many cases. Use of canned air you need to be very careful as some can leave

residual fog that's almost impossible to clean up, especially if you blow very close to the

surface. My experience with arctic butterfly hasn't been great. It's ok to remove non-oil

dust. But if the dust particle is organic in nature (probably most dust at home), then you

run the risk of smearing it into streaks as I did. My last resort was to use swaps and

solution from Visible Dust to clean, and it has been working well. But again, don't look for

dust if it doesn't matter.

I bought my 5D with a 24-105mm L at the end of 2006 with a $700 total rebate. If I had

waited until now I may be able have save a little more, but the photos that I captured this

year makes that small differences worthwhile. I would say if you need it, get it.

Other than what was said above, I will add that Lightroom's capability helped me

tremendously. For extensive editing you need Photoshop, but a good 95% or greater of what

I do is tweakable in Lightroom. Download a trial version and test for yourself if you like it.

Best wishes and have fun!

If the camera is working great, don't fix anything. My recommendation to you regarding

sensor cleaning is that if your shooting style or subject does not require you to have the

absolutely spotless sensors and you are affected by this currently in your picture, don't go

look for it and lose sleep over it, or lose sleep over a sensor cleaning gone bad.

24-105L on the 5D; 200/2.8 prime on the XT; very happy.

Yes, for an example:

 

http://www.photo.net/photos/wilsontsoi

"Run Nelson, Run!"

 

Yes, either away from the store or your cash.

Doug, I agree with Stacy, even if Canon sells the 1Ds MkII for $500, you can probably still read enough problems about it to put you off purchasing. Isolated statistics have too much selection bias to believe in.

How many people who are happy with their lens will go to the web and rant an entire 2 paragraphs about how happy they are? On the other hand, those who are unhappy with their lens (be it manufacturer's or user's error) tends to whine extra loudly for extra long period of time - so you've got a serious selection bias there by reading web comments. I will just say all my Canon cameras, lens, and flash which includes the 5D and the 20-105mm L IS and 420EX has not had any problems, are sharp. And there was a time when I thought I had exposure problem with my EOS 3 film cameras turned out to be more of my own user error. Best wishes in your purchase.

Don't think too much. I Just slap the 200mm on the XT, and the 24-105 on the 5D, and I am out to shoot. Have fun!

Although I don't have the 30D, I have the XT and the 5D. I only use the XT for telephoto purpose, and everything else with the 5D. I like the 5D mainly for 1). being able to dial in ISO in 1/3 stops which is nice when I use it as a light meter for the LF; 2). relatively large and clear viewfinder compare to smaller dSLR, especially if you are already spoiled by 35mm film or MF viewfinders; 3). very nicely coupled with the 24-105 lens without cropping factors since I shoot a lot of wides. You may also want to go to a store and see how comfortable each handles in your hands, with and without the battery packs. If I were you I'd go for the 5D with 24-105L, just keep in mind you will have vignette when shooting wide open, but I like the effect anyway and you can always correct in PS/Lightroom. Good luck.

I would get a 35mm f1.4 if you want prime for street, or a 24-105 L for street zoom. I know I am not answering the "cheap" lens question, but as pointed out above, really makes no sense to get a 5D and then buy a cheap lens. I'd rather do it the other way around - get a cheap dSLR and go for an excellent lens. Best wishes.

Someone find the email address of the lead engineer or whoever with decision power in Canon, post them, and we will flood with emails. Otherwise, none of them are likely to listen or care.

How do you guys "come into some cash" so frequently?

Hi Peter,

you've been asking the same question since Dec 2005, must have been a pretty rough 1.5 years of endurance, I personally couldn't have waited that long to get something =). Well, since then Canon has not put out a replacement, but the price has dropped significantly especially with rebates. If you absolutely need one within 2 month, you have no choices but to get one, the only thing I would worry about is any upcoming rebate, not replacement model. Even if Canon puts out a FF replacement model tomorrow, I am not sure if the price will be so appealing to you. Good luck getting you new 5D!

Hi,

 

I briefly searched but could not find solutions to the following scenario. We

have a hard drive with thousands of Canon raw files. In my MacOS X account, I

had previously used Lightroom to manage some earlier shots. More recently, my

wife had also used Lightroom to manage some later shots. It was not long before

we reached the conclusion that it may be best to create a 3rd Mac account where

we do our editing together so as to avoid overlapping effort (i.e. adjustment on

the same photo). At this point, conflict in deciding what adjustment looks

"best" is not an issue among us. So does anyone know an easy way to combine my

adjustment/database and that of my wife's to this third, new database? Is there

a directory where all these adjustments are stored that I can just copy over to

the third database (after changing ownership in MacOS, etc)? (I understand the

raws on hd aren't modified, so don't worry about explaining that).

 

Thanks.

Hi Patrick,

sorry my last post was a bit confusing. I spend part of my life in the biomedical field (what my wife called a "real job") that requires PS, Illustrator, and Acrobat for non-photography related stuff. Lightroom is just for the other part of my life (what my wife called a "money-wasting addiction"). I was hoping Adobe could bundle the Lightroom as part of Suite 3, making the upgrade more justified so I don't have to purchase it separately. The price of purchasing Lightroom + PS CS2 alone would have exceeded the $350 educational premium or the $199 educational standard Suite for me (assuming CS3 pricing is comparable to CS2.3). Thanks.

Hi Ellis. I am using LR trial now, and the workflow is great. I just found out the trial doesn't

expire until after March 27th, so I guess it doesn't hurt to wait for the official announcement.

I do qualify for educational version, so it's not bad price wise. It's just I need PS, Illustrator,

and Acrobat too. Guess I'll have to buy two seperate packages. Thanks for the prompt post!

Will Lightroom be part of Suite 3? The latest info I can find on photo.net dates back to Jan 2007. From

that post, it seems like Lightroom will not be part of Creative Suite 3 (Thanks Ellis Vener for the info). As

of March now, does this still look like the case? I was hoping there would be different bundles of suites

(or the like) tailor specific to photographer, with at least Photoshop and Lightroom bundled together. Any

official link from Adobe would be appreciated since if Lightroom is not bundled in any Suite, I am taking

the plunge instead of waiting until March 27th. Thanks.

I can think of 2 possibilities 1). some 8-year olds or adults who act like 8-year olds; 2). Ansel's residual spirit roaming in the internet. That said, I wouldn't worry too much about numeric ratings on a photo. How can art be rated with a number from 1-7?

I would rent/borrow the equipment and make an assessment yourself, then purchase the one you are happy enough with without breaking your wallet. The web biases whiners who tend to complain more than they praise. My experience with the 5D with L lenses is that they are quite good in pixel resolution (I assume that's what you meant by "performance"), equivalent at least to most well-scanned variety of MF. Good luck.

Hi Daniel, from my personal experience:

1. I use blower first, and it works great most of the time.

2. I don't like Arctic Butterfly. A brand new one once smeared some oily type of dust into long ugly streaks, so I returned it the next day.

3. Sensor swab + corner swab + appropriate solution from Visible Dust works well for tough dust.

4. If the type of photo you shoot is not being affected, don't deliberately do a f22 test to find dust - you'll almost always find something to clean and thus become a sensor cleaning slave forever.

Good luck.

David

About spots on lens (doesn't look like what you have), I don't clean unless it's visibly affecting my photos or if my hands itch and really bothers me. I use a blower first (like the Hurricane Blower made by Visible Dust), then lens paper with lens solution if the blow is not enough.

 

About dust on sensor (looks like that's what you have). A blow with the Hurricane Blower usually removes most dusts. Artic Butterfly (made by Visible Dust) doesn't work for me, as it smears some type of dusts into ugly streaks, and I returned mine. For those dust, a full frame sensor swab + corner swab with the appropriate solution (all made by Visible Dust) works very well. For me, I learn to avoid deliberately pixel peep to find dust, or you'll forever be a sensor cleaning slave. Clean only when the dust affect you. Good luck.

why not just borrow or rent a few lenses (if you can), test them yourself, and buy what you think is best for you, photography-wise and finantially.