mcara

June 5, 2007

Front/back view:

June 5, 2007

I called Adorama's Customer Service today but they are closed already. I will keep you informed about their response. I am attaching 3 pictures: first one shows that I was able to register the card on the sandisk's site; second one shows the 4GB (fake one) compared to 1GB (my old geniune card that I bought from B&H a long time ago) - see how rough and discolored is the printing on the fake card; third picture shows a comparison of the side views of the card - observe that the holes on the fake card are smaller than on the geniune one.

I took only 2 pictures with it. I will try to fill it to see if it has the right capacity. The camera (canon 30D) shows that it had 444 RAW images capacity when inserted into the camera.<div></div>

June 5, 2007

Yes! I just bought a fake Sandisk Extreme III 4GB card from Adorama. After

reading about fake cards on e-bay I decided to buy from Adorama (I some bought

other stuf from them in the past) - supposedly "a honest dealer". When the

card arrived I was surprised to see that the "SanDisk Extreme" text on the

front of the card had little yellow tint to it but otherwise it was of silver

color. By comparison my old Extreme III 1GB card had golden letters. Puzzled

by the difference, I have contacted Sandisk customer service. The serial

number was good, but I told them about the color... They asked me to send them

photos of the new card (4GB).

The answer from Sandisk is (I have removed their CR name):

"Dear Mihai,

Thank you for contacting Sandisk. We have received

your photos regarding your compactflash card.

Unfortunately the card in the photo is not an authentic

Sandisk card. Contact your vendor and let them know

what we have decided. If you have any further questions

regarding this matter, please feel free to contact us

at 866-san-disk

Thank you.

Best regards,

Customer rep. name (removed)

Rma dept."

By the way, the card was sealed "blister-pack". In the blister pack I found

the travel case, recovery software miniCD v.3.2, "user manual" and some

commercial stuf from Sandisk. In the cardboard pack it contained the offer

from Capture-one. So, it looked perfect, including that I was able to register

this card with SanDisk.

April 6, 2007

The same thing happened with Intel Core Duo processors when they were first introduced: their retail price was higher that the one suggested by Intel because of high demand.

April 3, 2007

I see I missed a couple of questions...

Using all 7 AF points: Almost always

the camera chooses to focus on something else than the subject. I rarely use

this mode.

What is the "best" way to get accurate focusing on your subject? Since

you are asking this question with regard to moving subjects, I will second

Pieris Berreitter's advice to take lots of frames of your subject. This is

probably (and unfortunately) the only way to get better focused shots without

upgrading equipment: better cameras, better lenses.

I have observed two more things about my 30D that, oftentimes, make my shots

to be out of focus: 1) the AF point in the viewfinder is much smaller

than the real AF point and it is not necessarily centered on the real AF point;

2) if the background has high contrast and enters the field of view of the

"real" AF sensor then the camera will focus on the background. I wish: 1) Canon

will make the AF squares in the viewfinder show the real position & size of the

AF sensors and 2) The camera could allow me to set background/foreground

priority to solve the second problem.

April 3, 2007

I do not have Canon 350D but I stayed in Holliday Inn :) Ok, I searched the

web for some info on your camera. It seems that 350D does not have a high

precision AF sensor at the center. The only benefit of using the center censor

then would be its capability to focus on both vertical as well as horizontal

patterns. I do not know if this will help much since, usually, there are enough

lines of both orientations (or diagonal...) in kids.

I have Canon 30D and it has high precision AF sensor. Usually I use center AF

point and recompose. There are situations in which this method does not work,

e.g. when working with extremely shallow depth of field because after

"recomposing" the subject may not be in the initial plane of focus anymore. In

those cases I use the AF point closest to the subject.

February 27, 2007

From my experience the compact macro has a slightly worse PF & CA characteristics than the 1.8 version. The PF does improve with stopping down, but my feeling is that the 1.8 improves better than the 2.5 version. The differences are quite small though, so I whould not worry about them. In every other respect (sharpness across the frame, flare, ability to focus closer and construction) the CM is better than the 1.8 lens.

February 1, 2007

And whether the flash is bounced or not should not matter: to expose correctly one must shine same "amount" of light per unit of area of the subject either way...

February 1, 2007

Although the flash seems very bright, it actually isn't much different from

normal daylight. Read more about this at

<a href="http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH?d=dmtATD&c=367698&p=">InteliHealth</a>.

The idea is that the flash is not stong enough to cause any damage. Think, on a

very bright day the power from a typical flash is just enough to "fill in" at

short distances from the subject.

I would not generalize this for any kind of flash as "There is no

science that a flash can hurt a baby's eyes". The science is in the flash power

(or flux). For example a flash from the Hiroshima explosion probably left many

people blind.

January 28, 2007

If you look at the EXIF data, you'll see the shutter speed was 1/200 sec, at a focal length of 50mm.

I looked (this is how I knew that f-stop was f9). What is your point?

Some people have shaky hands, others press the release button too hard, ... If 1/200s is enough for everybody using a 50mm focal length lens then her lens is very soft/bad. What was your point?

January 27, 2007

1. My camera had sensor dust from factory. It is not worth sending the camera back just for this problem.

2. Reading the camera's manual on sensor cleaning is a good idea but most probably you will have to read on the net more about that. I did clean the sensor myself once and can testify that the adrenaline levels go up. Seriosly, if you never did this before, I would advise you to pay a ~$20 fee to the local camera shop to get it cleaned by those guys (at least for the beginning).

January 27, 2007

That is sensor dust. Search this forum (or google) for "sensor dust" and you will find this topic discussed many times in the past. You can see that spot because you closed the aperture down to f9. If you want to see all the dust on your sensor stop the lens to the smallest aperture and take a picture of a withe paper or clear sky.

Sorry, unsolicited advice: Also, your picture seems quite soft, at least for an aperture of f9. Is it because of camera shake? If so, you will get better pictures if you use larger apertures and larger shutter speeds.

December 23, 2006

I can speak only about the step-up ring (Q2). I bought an "Adorama" brand step-up ring (52-67mm). It is a real cr@p! I thought I am going to twist the inner barrel of the lens when screwing this ring. Really hard to turn it. It is that bad! I would suggest that you look at this <a href="http://www.adorama.com/BWSR7772.html?searchinfo=step-up 72mm 77mm&item_no=1">

B+W</a> step-up ring. I have B+W UV and Circ. Polarizer filters and they are excellent! Skip the generic and store brand names.

About Q1 - it looks like the hood might fit (judging by sizes) over the step-up ring but maybe somebody who really has the combination could provide a definite answer.

Merry Christmas!

December 22, 2006

As I said Andre may have a point with the shallow DOF.

Take a look at Jeff's picture. The bottom is softer than the upper part. This

could mean any of the following: 1) the lens is decentered; 2) the camera was

not aligned well with the wall (that is the plane of the wall was not

perfectly parallel to the plane of the sensor); 3) this is by design for

this zoom.

To get the camera properly aligned with the wall place a

small mirror on the wall and align the camera so that you can see the image of

the camera in the mirror through the viewfinder. The smaller the mirror the

better the alignment will be. But you will need a smooth wall, not a

textured one.

To eliminate the DOF/curvature issue try to shoot a very

distant wall so that at f8 everything from some small distance (much smaller

than subject distance) to infinity should be in focus. This will help with

alignment errors as well (it is hard to do the alignment using the method

described above with a distant building).

December 22, 2006

... and that's why I like threads with pictures of walls. And I have already asked Santa (at the local mall) to bring me a macro lens so that finally my wall will look sharp from corner to corner.

December 22, 2006

Actually lots of people (myself including) would like to have a red ring on their lenses. The difference between me and doctors/lawyers is that I cannot afford to pay just for the red ring.

December 22, 2006

Sorry for giving in to Momo's attempt to switch the topic

to FF DSLR. Momo, at any price point one can get a defective lens, at least in

the Canon, Nikon, ... world. I have heard that in Leica world they check every

lens before it leaves the factory (but I do not work on Wall Street to afford

even a standard Leica prime). I am sure some (if not all) people get PS cameras

with soft corners... Is it worth getting a DSLR at all when one can get better

corners with a PS? It depends. For me it was worth because by the time my PS

acquired the focus my kids were out of frame... It was very

frustrating! Is it worth getting FF DSLR? If shallower DOF, smaller noise,

better resolution and wide angle is important then for sure a FF DSLR is worth

every penny! For portrait photography corner sharpness is not necessarily that

important. Is it worth putting a bad zoom on a FF DSLR? I really do not care

what people do with their money. On the other hand one cannot replace the

plastic lenses on their PS cameras with a good prime.

Back to the corner sharpness. Andre may have a point with

the shallow DOF especially if the lens has a large field curvature (this is

another reason to get a macro lens to take pictures of walls - they are

supremely corrected for field flatness). Anywho, it seems that 24-105 is not

such an impressive zoom (with exception of the PUPPY's sample). Here is a

comparison at f8 with

100mm f/2</a> prime and here is the comparison with the

50mm f/1.4</a> prime. One can see that corner softness of the zoom should be

visible even on a APS-C DSLR and no amount of sharpening can save this lens. For

sure some doctors/professors/Wall Street bankers will like the red ring though.

December 21, 2006

If you are getting paid for the product photography then maybe you should

consider investing in a more specialized lens like Canon 50mm compact macro or

the highly regarded (at least on

fredmiranda</a> and www.photozone.de

lens performance survey</a>) TS-E 90mm.

Regarding your image: if all 24-105mm have such bad corners at f7.1 then it

is a very bad lens. I would not pay for it more than for a 50mm f/1.8 (ok, maybe

a bit more because it has a red ring). I suspect that it's just your lens. It

must be defective or otherwise all these doctors/professors are blind.

December 17, 2006

Sorry for the mess.

Citing Szilard Janosi: "Smaller sensor bigger (usable) aperture, larger sensor

narrower (usable) hole." No, you did not understand the theory behind

the diffraction. Read again the first link from Mark U. The important factor

here is the pixel pitch (or "density") and not the sensor size. For example,

smallest "usable" aperture on Canon 1Ds mark II should be larger then smallest

"usable" aperture on Canon 5D. Bob Atkins correctly says that if you stop the

lens down too much the extra pixels would be "wasted". That is, if you

stop the lens to say f22 then the resolution you will get from the 17MP FF

sensor of 1DsMkII will be the same as from the 12MP FF sensor of 5D.

Regarding the macro (or any other) thing... You want to get larger DOF and

APS-C sensor is your friend here (because at the same f-stop APS-C will give

"sharper" or more "in focus" pictures than FF sensor if distance to the subject

is 1.6 time larger in APS-C than FF to fit the entire subject) but only up to

the smallest usable aperture in APS-C. If at that aperture the DOF is still

unsatisfactory then you should move to larger format (sensor size) where the

diffraction will be less of a problem. On the other hand you will have to stop

down the aperture in that larger format more than in the APS-C to get the same

DOF. It is difficult to quantify the relationship between f-stop, DOF, sensor

format and diffraction. Most probably you will not gain in resolution by moving

from APS-C to FF sensor (and stopping down more on FF to get the same DOF as in

APS-C). But, do not confuse resolution with DOF. Only you can decide what

is more important: resolution (~"sharpness", detail) or DOF and then make a

compromise or use one of the methods mentioned by Mark U (see his second

link).

Citing Dan: "the anti-alias filter (and, I suppose, anything else in the

light path) can also affect defraction." Don't think so... The first link

provided by Mark U says that essentially that due to anti-aliasing filter the

beam/ray will be spread enough (as if it already suffered diffraction) so

that the diffraction will simply not matter much (at least not up to the moment

when diffraction will produce a larger spread than the anti-aliasing filter).

That is, if instead of a nice B+W MRC UV filter you will put the matte

viewfinder screen on your lens then EF-S 18-55mm lens (with a matte filter) will

produce images as good as your 17-40mm f4L (with a matte filter).

December 17, 2006