zigzag

If anything, skip everything else BUT the 24-70mm - it may be heavy but that's your standard lens.

 

It depends what your style of shooting is (A 5D is perfect for portraits/people but not sports.)

 

It is not understandable to me why opinions vary so much in this thread from the gurus. You are looking at the best. Know that the 70-200 f/2.8 IS is heavy, know that the 85mm f/1.2 seems overpriced (but very nice for portraits).

 

Other than that, you will have a highly rated set of lenses.

Two recommendations:

 

1. See the beginner flash articles in the archives at http://philipdunn.blogspot.com/

 

2. Read about the Canon system specifically plus lots of general tutorial stuff at: http://super.nova.org/DPR/

I got sea-sprayed on my 30D multiple times and all seemed fine. Two weeks later the pop-up flash wouldn't pop up (salt no doubt.) Keep it dry.

Generally, it is recommended to turn IS off when using a tripod - but if you are getting vibration then maybe... Some of the newer lenses can detect when they are on a tripod and internally switch off IS - can't remember which ones.

Welcome to photo.net.

 

In general this flashing is an alarm that is (usefully) telling you that you are starting to/have burnt out your highlights in some areas - i.e. you will have lost all detail in those areas and they will be very close to white on the photo (sometimes using RAW there can be just a little leeway.) There is nothing wrong with your camera - read the manual about this function (I don't have a 40D). As you have noticed these flashings are not direct artifacts on your photo - but zoom in on those areas to see how little detail they hold.

 

If you want to know a lot more about flash see photonotes.org/flash.

 

I highly recommend that you read about histograms at http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml if you are not already using it. After that, read the follow up article: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

Have a search of the EXIF definitions yourself:

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/TagNames/Canon.html#FiletInfo

I don't own this camera and don't really know but the software manual for it is available at http://www.eosdoc.com/manuals/. I see from a quick peruse that you need a TWAIN driver and WIA driver with your firewire cable plus ZoombrowserEx. It does say you need a CD. Red the manual and perhaps someone else can advise.

Alessandro, when using Av the flash is programmed to give -1 stop exposure as it is expected that it will be acting as a fill flash, with the main exposure being viven by the ambient. This is not the case in M mode where the flash is taken to be the Main light and (using ETTL) the flash will attempt to give you the exposure you expect.

 

This is probably explained better <a href="http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/index2.html#confusion">Here</a>

I may have missed it but I did not see IS in the EXIF when using EXIFTool.

16. People who take a thread off in a completely different direction.

I am a little surprised that Canon don't bring out a Pocket Wizard killer (or radiopopper killer) to upgrade the ancient ST-E2 and give people ETTL at 1600ft. Maybe that's not their core business.

Canon users who mourn the lack of a new 5D and who need a new camera will look to buy the most up to date Canon offerring - I have seen a trickle of wedding photographers who bought 1DMkIII and I suspect that those who were hanging on for that 5DMkII will now be considering the 1DMkIII except would you trade in a FF 12.8Mpx camera with proven low noise performance for a 10Mpx one with Digic III noise reduction? Most will 'manage' with the 5D as they have done successfully for the last few years.

 

As an amateur I am looking forward to the day when 5Ds drop to the price of 20Ds - i.e. they become those old, useless cameras that nobody wants anymore.

Looks like the new FF could now be announced at Photokina in August - which means it would hit the shops next Xmas.

There is some discussion <a href="http://www.brisbanephotography.com/viewtopic.php?t=6007">Here</a> which discusses some options.

In the search engine try:

 

"san.antonio" patron -forum

 

That will find you a few. Generally if you put '+' before a word that means 'mandatory' and '-' means exclude.

 

This works on google.com as well - so to find yourself a photographer in San.Antonio who is NOT a wedding photographer, type into google:

 

+photographer san.antonio -wedding

 

Using key words you can selectively home in to the small area you want by excluding and including some names/words. You still get some junk but it works reasonably well - and is quicker than the Yellow Pages.

Just a few things about night photography with the 30D (you are doing the right things generally):

<br><br>

1. Don't underexpose, instead expose to protect the highlights that you want to preserve.<br>

2. It's often better to take 'night' photos at twilight when there's still a bit of blue in the sky as any darker black and it just becomes featureless (you'd be better off cropping.)<br>

3. Even a 'good' tripod can waiver a little bit over many seconds - especially in wind. Sometimes a weight (bag) is useful to hang underneath or another trick is to tie a bungee cord under it that you hold down with one foot.<br>

4. Use a cable release (the timer will work just as well.)<br>

5. It can be difficult to obtain focus at night - you can do better by setting up earlier or taking a large torch to help you manually focus.<br>

6. For the distances you are using and with DOF limited by the darkness I would be tempted to go to f/8 and ISO 200.<br>

7. Enable Custom Function 2 (CF-02) which is Long Exposure Noise Reduction - this shoots a 2nd dark frame after the original one that is used to cancel out noise.<br>

8. Sometimes the haze can reduce your sharpness.<br>

9. Include only those parts of the frame where you can get some detail, generally - i.e. get closer or zoom in.<br><br>

 

Here's a photo showing some 30D 'night' photos. Notice many are not quite night at all. Also (to me) the least attractive once as the ones with the black sky.

At these lens prices ($5999, $11999) I don't think I'll be buying anything yet:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-9206-9236

Looks like 5D MkII will be @ Photokina in August then. Any new lenses coming this month?

I'm sure I've seen 5D manual PDFs online - have a search. I leave my NR on auto always - never a problem.

Remind me, why would I buy a 40D?

 

i. Better body.

ii. 6.5 FPS.

 

What else?

The 450D announced today may also be a very good answer.

The aesthetics are nice on the 20D. The 30D LCD is better. If you have the money and want one then you probably can't go wrong. On 24th something new will be announced - that may alter things slightly.

I was surprised how few lenses Canon do support for auto compensation in DPP 3.2.0. Of the four Canon lenses I have only one was supported. This feature is new in this version.

I must stop getting distracted: I have a few hundred shots to process from Saturday :-) (Spot the subtle WB differences on my test images from tonight)

If Canon open sourced their drivers after X years then it could be fixed I am sure. The the open source community could help Canon along.