jean_paul_samson

Here are my two cents. I'm another one of those Calgarians who regularly visits the

mountains for hiking and skiing. I usually take a Digital Rebel and the kit 18-55mm lens.

My experience is that this lens is sometimes not wide enough for landscape photos in the

mountains--those big hunks of rock can often overwhelm the limited field of view of the

lens. Thus, you will find the 17-40mm limiting.

You already have the mid to telephoto range covered by your existing lenses. For example,

your 70-300mm will be good for wildlife. If you are planning on sticking with cropped

sensor DSLR's, perhaps you would be better served by the Canon EF-S 10-22mm F3.5-4.5

USM. It is very close to the price point of the lenses you are debating.

Otherwise, go with the Canon EF 17-40mm F4.0 L USM.<div></div>

Here's my own experience with aquiring the Nikkor 18-200mm. I put myself on the waiting

list at my local camera shop (The Camera Store in Calgary, AB) on Friday, November 17,

2006. I was told their waiting list for this lens numbered in the hundreds. Three-and-a-

half weeks later, on Tuesday, December 12, 2006, they called me. My copy of the lens had

arrived. And I didn't have to pay an outrageous price, either: Can$780, which is roughly US

$675.

I'm putting together a camera kit consisting of the Nikon D80 and the 18-200 VR lens. To improve the

macro capabilities of the lens, I also plan on picking up a Canon 500D close-up lens. Since I've never

used a close-up lens before, I have a few questions and concerns. First off, has anyone used this

combination and, if so, what do you think? Secondly, are there vignetting issues (i.e. should I buy the 72

mm version or a step-up ring and the 77 mm)?

I have ordered camera accessories, lenses, and even an LCD TV from B&H, shipping to

Calgary via UPS Expedited. UPS Expedited and UPS Express do not charge customs

brokerage/handling fees. (Note the UPS Standard does have additional, surprise brokerage

fees. Don't use it.) In all of these cases, all I've had to pay is the G.S.T. on delivery.

U.S. Postal Service/Canada Post will involve a $5 customs handling fee, in addition to owing

the G.S.T. FedEx has many additional surprise fees, include the brokerage fees and interest

charges for covering the G.S.T. required on your shipment. Definitely avoid FedEx.

Oh, never mind. I got your clip working on my G4 PowerBook. One of the plug-in

components in my /Library/QuickTime folder was causing problems. Once I removed the

component, entitled "AviImporter-r7 (ppc).component", I was able to open the AVI in

QuickTime Player, play it back, and transcode it to another format. (I've now deleted that

file, as it really was unnecessary.)

Perhaps you should try temporarily removing all your QuickTime plug-ins to see if any of

they are the culprit. This means moving everything in /Library/QuickTime (at the root of

your hard drive) and ~/Library/QuickTime (in your user directory) somewhere else where

QuickTime can't find them. Then, restart QuickTime Player and try working with your AVI.

Remember to move all the plug-in files back to their proper place when finished testing

this out.

I'm using a G4 PowerBook. That sample video from the 700IS (TestSample.avi) crashes

QuickTime Player when I try to open it. It seems to playback just fine in VLC. Unfortunately

but not surprisingly, many Mac application simply use QuickTime to work with video, so

they all suffer the same fate (i.e. they crash).

It seems other people have similar problems with the AVI files from digital cameras (see

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060505122748893 ).

Sorry I can't help further, just wanted you to know that it's not just you! :-)

The link to QPict is:

http://www.qpict.net/

I was searching for a similar application a year or so back. At the time iPhoto didn't even

support RAW files, which made finding a good viewer even more important. A second

criteria was that I didn't wish to spend much money.

The one I picked was QPict (http://www.qpict.net/). Note that QPict acts solely as a viewer

but doesn't supply any sophisticated image conversion facilities. It supports Canon RAW

files (CRW) and thumbnails (THM). I use it in conjunction with my Canon Digital Rebel.

You can drag a directory into the application, and it will generate thumbnails of the photos

within onscreen for perusing.

If I may offer an opposing opinion, I used to use Vistek/West Canadian Colour for my

35mm film processing and printing (4x6 and 8x12). They are using a Fuji mini-lab for

printing. I have always had good results on my 8x12 enlargements, and their prices are

competitive to London Drugs. However, recently they have the sharpening turned way to

high when printing 4x6, and so the images tend to look "pixelated" and some textured

surfaces such as rocks can take a dithered appearance.

Like you, London Drugs's quality is much too variable, so I'd avoid them.

My current choice is Nova, which also uses a Fuji mini-lab, but they've tuned down the

sharpening on 4x6 prints. This results in a smoother, more pleasing image.

Unfortunately, their prices are signficantly higher than London Drugs or Vistek.