thomas_hoffmann

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I did a 3 week trip through northern India two months ago. New Delhi to Jaisalmer, through Rajasthan to Varanasi and back to New Delhi. An organized tour with GAP, but always using public transport, trains, busses, cars and Tuk Tuks.</p>

<p>I took my Canon EOS 5DII with a 24-105 IS f4 L, 85 1.8 and the 70-200 IS f4L. I think this was perfect.</p>

<p>The equipment was carried in a watertight and dusttight Ortlieb Aquacam bag. This carried all the mentioned equipment plus 5 CF cards and 2 additional batteries , but without the sunhood for the 70-200. This bag fits unobtrusively into a small backpack, together with a pullover and other stuff. Not especially India related, as our group did not experience any theft or visible violence at all, but I did also use a pacsafe lockable wire mesh, to secure my luggage with camera while travelling on the sleeper trains. I did just sleep more relaxed this way ... .</p>

<p>I also took my 430EXII and 50 1.8 in my main luggage, but did not use either. The next time, I would exchange the 50 1.8 for the 1.4x Extender for the 70-200. The charger was carried in the main luggage and a standard two pin Eurostyle cord worked at every hotel without an adapter. Well, as long as there was some electricity ... .</p>

<p>The biggest problem during this journey was dust. So, I had a lenscloth, a small rubber blower thingy and a cut toothbrush also in the bag, to clean the camera regularly, especially around the lens mount before changing lenses. I have never seen my camera that dusty before.</p>

<p>Also in the Ortlieb bag: a half used roll of toilet paper, pressed flat, and Immodium lingual acut. Both needed and very important ;-)</p>

<p>It was a very interesting and intense journey.</p>

<p>Check my gallery here: http://home.arcor.de/hoffmann0815/IndiaThomas</p>

<p>Enjoy your trip!</p>

<p>Thomas.</p>

<p>Hello,<br /> I had the same problem as you had: a very slow start up from sleep or off, AFTER a repair.<br /> And I got a new camera last week.</p>

<p>The story of my 1st 5DII:</p>

<p>Bought in December 2008 in Germany, as a kit together with the 24-105L.</p>

<p>Intermittend failure of the shutter from the beginning, a buzzing sound after several changes of camera orientation from vertical to horizontal and back and following a freeze of the camera. Additionally write errors to several CF-cards, where the camera froze up during writing to the card and the card would not be detected by the camera afterwards. Only a reformat of the card did help. Repaired in May 2009, took nearly 6 weeks. New circuit boards.</p>

<p>Focus failure of the 24-105L in June, it did focus to 3-5m instead of infinity in wide angle. Repaired, took 3 weeks.</p>

<p>Well visible "Labyrinth" artifacts in ISO100 images in August. Prints of A3+ and A2 not possible. Looking back, they were there from March and got worse and worse. Repaired in October, took 3 weeks. New sensor and PCBs.</p>

<p>Start up problems following the repair in November. Took up to 5 seconds to wake up from sleep or to switch on.</p>

<p>My dealer, Hirrlinger in Stuttgart, did convince Canon to exchange the camera, as I will travel to India next weekend.</p>

<p><strong>BUT</strong> : I exchanged the camera for a new one last week. Got the new camera, left the shop and tried it out immediately. <strong>This new camera died after 5 to 10 images and failed to detect the CF-card</strong> . This error happened with several cards. I went back to the shop immediately and the error could be reproduced with a brand new Sandisk card.</p>

<p>They had another 5DII, which I got in exchange for the second brand new dead camera.</p>

<p><strong>I am now on my third EOS 5DII</strong> . This one works until now. But I do not trust this camera anymore. So, now I have to figure out, how to pack my old 10D as a back up together with charger and batteries into my small backpack for the trip to India. It will be dead weight for the journey. I hope so. If not, my 5DII will be dead weight. Crap, I don´t know how to fit it into the luggage yet, I want to travel light and don't want to carry around another kilogramm.</p>

<p>Photography should be fun and a camera, especially as enormously expensive as this one, should simply work as advertised. The 5DII is my 3rd Canon EOS in the last 10 years and I hate it, until now it was one year of frustration. Maybe it will get better, when I come back from India with tons of good photos.</p>

<p>I hope your dealer can convince Canon to change the camera too.</p>

<p>Regards,</p>

<p>Thomas.</p>

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,

I started to look out for a Leica M8 after renting one for a long weekend and liking it a lot.

Unfortunately, I don�t think it is worth the 4900 Euros, which is charged for it in Germany (sans lens).

But today I stumbled over a discount of 800 Euros when you trade in another SLR or rangefinder camera (digital or

not). This was advertised at a large local dealer (Hirrlinger in Stuttgart) on an official Leica looking flyer.

Hmmmm, the discount is

running from midth of July to midth of September ... . Photokina is at the end of September. Are they clearing

stock or did this happen before and it is something regular that happens once in a while?

Did anyone else see something in other countries, especially the US? If so, I would be interested. It is

interesting at the current $ to � exchange ratio. It may be worth a flight to the US alone for this.

Thank you very much and best regards,

Thomas.

Of course gentlemen, you are correct and I am wrong. Of course you can correct these aberrations and get a planar image completely in focus, even when you are quite close. That is what a well constructed wide angle lens is all about.

... I should go to bed now, there was not enough sleep last night ...

... instead of writing such nonsense ...

Regards, Thomas.

Simple triangulation:

What was your distance from the test chart? What is the size of the test chart?

When you take a photo at 17mm of a test chart of i.e. 2m width, then you have to be roughly 2m away. At 2m focus distance to the center of your chart, the distance from your lens to the corner of a quadratic testchart is then about 2.45m. (2xPhytagorean theorem)

This gives a difference in distance of about 45cm (17.7") from center to the corner of your testchart.

At f4 and 2m distance to the center of the testchart your depth of field is not sufficient and the corners of the chart are not really in focus anymore ...

If you are close to a subject with a small focal distance like 17mm, then you will always have less sharpness in the sides and corners of your image because you are simply out of focus in these areas. The larger your focal distance (smaller picture angle), the less you will have these effects.

Regards, Thomas.

The reason for the integrated vertical grip on the Canon EOS 1D series was simply the huge battery that they needed at that time.

It is a huge brick of a battery! This was the most convenient space to store it in the beginning. It is more than twice the size of the xxD BP-511 type.

Only recently has Canon switched to higher energy density Lithium-ion batteries for the 1D/1Ds. Before the 1D used huge and heavy but reliable NiCd type batteries.

There is no need for an integrated grip, if you can get reasonable batterylife with a smaller battery like the 10-40D series or the 5D. These had the Li-ion type battery from the beginning. Then a detachable grip is more convenient.

Regards,

Thomas.

I found it quite difficult to get a good picture of a silicon chip. The problem for me was illumination. Maybe you have a ringflash or something that may work better than my flash or lamps. Or use an umbrella or a softbox.

The most satisfying results did I get when I photographed directly through a microscope. Either through a dedicated photography port (most older microscopes have such a thing for polaroid cameras) or through the eyepiece of the microscope. Holding by hand or using a tripod. You can easily focus into it.

This also has the advantage, that you can choose a proper illumination (bright field, dark field, phaseshift contrast, polarized, filtered for fluorescence, ...) to see the interesting parts.

Good luck,

Thomas.

I bought an EOS 5 with the broken command dial. I specifically looked for a damaged one

on E-Bay. At that time good ones were around ?150,- and this one was bought for ?100,-

.

It took me about 2 hours to fix the broken command dial with the online help that could

be found on these two pages:

http://eosdoc.com/manuals/?q=5DialFix

http://www.lumika.org/gear_a2e_command_dial.htm

The repair is not difficult if you are not scared of small srews and tiny springs. Also, I did

not remove and resolder any wiring, as it is described in the second link above. It was just

not necessary.

It is working very well now but I use it rarely, my 10D is the one that gets used.

Best regards,

Thomas.

Hello again,

I just got my EOS 5 today. Thank you very much again for your suggestions.

I bought one via E-Bay that was described as "damaged with broken command dial". As I

had done my homework here on photo.net, I already knew about this common EOS 5

command dial problem. And also, I had found a website "http://eosdoc.com/manuals.asp?

q=5DialFix" which gave repair instructions. It took about 3 hours to repair it and now I

have a good EOS 5 for 100 Euros.

Regarding the question why I was looking for a film body for the mentioned photography

course: the course contains a laboratory introduction and this will be difficult to do with a

digital camera. Digital SLRs are welcome for the second part of the course later

this year.

Best regards,

Thomas.

Thank you to all for your recommendations.

I didn't know the EOS 50 before. But I will be on a lookout for one on E-Bay. Or, maybe, for

a reasonably priced EOS 5. I have to see for how much they sell usually. I checked some

camera shops in town this evening and they have a few EOS 5 for 250- 350 Euros on

display (to much ... ). But I have not seen any EOS 50.

I still have 5 weeks before the course starts, so that should be enough time to get a

camera.

Best regards,

Thomas.

Hello,

I have just booked a photography course at our local "Volkshochschule" (I think it is called

"adult education center" in english).

Recently I have bought a Canon 10D, after 3 years with a digicam. But the course is not for

digital cameras, as it contains a basic photolaboratory course also. I don't mind to get a

Canon EOS film body for this, as I wanted to try b&w photography and self processing of

film for a long time.

But: I don't want to spend a lot of money currently and therefore it must be a used

camera.

The problem is: I have never been looking for film bodies before, as I started photography

with digicams only 3 years ago.

So, please help me, which used Canon film bodies are on the market that are comparable

to the 10D in terms of control layout? I would like to avoid to have to learn two completly

different cameras. What about a Canon 10s? On the other hand, it seems that an EOS ELAN

7 / EOS 30 seems to be the most similar film body to a 10D. Correct? But they are

relatively young and expensive. Are there any film EOS at all, that are handling similar as a

10D? Is this really important when I can get a 15 year old EOS 650 body for 50 Euros via E-

Bay?

I have looked through Canons online Camera Museum, but it is not very informative.

Best regards,

Thomas.

I got a backpack which can swing to the side/front and allows access to the camera and

lenses via a flap in the side of the backpack without having to put it down.

In the bottom part I currently carry a Canon EOS 10D, 17-40L, 28-80 and 50/1.8. Instead

of the 28-80 a 70-200L also fits into the bottom compartment. The compartment in the

top of the backpack easily carries a pullover+outdoor jacket+food and you still have some

space in a pouch that runs the backside of the backpack. On the side is another open

pocket and fastener to carry a small tripod.

To swing it to the front, you disconnect the right shoulder strap with an additional

fastener. It is plain black, very unobtrusive and does not shout "photogear" to other

people.

It has a detachable hipstrap and breaststrap and fits well enough to allow 200km/h on

my motorcycle on the Autobahn :-) Oh and it has a detachable rain hood. I took it for

hiking into the Alps and to Teneriffa and now use it a s a replacement for my standard

daypack. So I have my camera always with me. I need less than 5 seconds to get the

camera out of it.

Have a look at

www.holst-direct.com

and follow the "Zum Rundgang" link and then

the "weiter" links. By the way, I am not linked to Holst in any way. It is just the most

convenient photo bag I have owned so far.

Best regards,

Thomas.

Thank you for sharing this. I liked the comment to the photos. It is always very interesting

to learn and see how other (=different from most of my german fellow people) cultures

live.

Best regards,

Thomas.

Hello,

Some very good information about "unsharp mask" - how to:

http://www.creativepro.com:80/story/feature/11242-1.html

Finally I understand what unsharp mask does and wich settings to use.

Best regards, Thomas.

I was always "right eyed". How else could you operate the controls on the back of a digital

camera with your right thumb without poking your nose all the time? But, even before

digital did I try to avoid conflics between my nose and the camera and took right eyed

photos.

After a long time photographing I tend to have difficulties to focus correctly with both

eyes when not looking through a camera. It is like one is stuck in nearfield and the other

one in far focused mode. The same happens after using microscopes with single eyepieces

at work for a longer time.

Is someone having the same problem???