cham

ok anyone know where i can get one of these hyperdrives or compactdrives in the UK? all the sites i find are for the US and basically i Don't want to end up thinking that's a great price then getting charge a fortune on import duty... up until now i'd been looking at the jobo drives but they seem quite slow

if you use black velvet as a material as well as having this further back from the subject it should work... for some reason black velvet seems to absorb more light than anything else i've used

the quality you get from the raw file is just so much better, take a picture in raw and jpg format, open them up in photoshop and you should be able to see the difference, I always find that the raw files have more vibrancy to the colour, I have to correct this when shooting jpgs but increasing the saturation by +35

 

jpgs take less time to write to the cards though and take less time to transfer to your PC/Mac

I'm with bob on that one, I have sandisk cards I also have kingston cards and even ones from jessops, I haven't had any problem with any of them, although I like the Kingston Elite cards, similar performance and usually cheaper.

really though how many times has this debate been posted over the last two weeks or so?

 

are sony's lenses going to be up to the standard of canon lenses for professional use, for people that want to future proof their investment...

 

and it doesn't matter how big an image your sensor can produce if you can't take a picture in the first place.

 

As i've said before sony have been very good at leaving old products in the dark after a few months...

i think it depends on the interior shot as well... the kit lens does suffer from hefty barrel distortion at the wide end<div></div>

looks good to me, I'll check it out, Thanks! :)

I've pretty much photographed everything in the last few years, but the one

thing i'm lacking in is shooting people in a studio environment. I've seen

bruce smith's course (www.brucesmithphotographer.com) in magazines and on his

site, and it's something i'd like to do.

 

However I don't want to completely throw myself in at the deep end and waste

his and my time.

 

I don't want any of those dodgy glamour courses and I'd rather stay away from

portaiture if possible.

 

does anyone know any courses they've been on or know that are good in London

(UK) which is a good beginner level/taster course?

I get at least 300-400 shots with mine if i'm not using a flash and when i used to shoot in jpg, in raw i get a little less but its worth it... to be honest i think you'll end up filling your memory card long before your battery runs out, but i'd agree with eric if you're really that worried about battery power then get the battery grip although unless you can't charge your camera for the whole week i wouldnt' bother.

 

Personally i wouldn't get generic batteries as a good friend of mine just ruined his 20d because he wanted to save $30 on a battery...

 

if you're going to spend that much on a camera don't skimp on the accessories.

 

as for a polariser just get any hoya 58mm which will fit your lens, as you'll be using the kit lens it might not be worth bothering with the super HMC type its not so noticeable to see the difference anyway.

 

Finally when you're there, take pictures of everything, and i mean everything, otherwise you'll get home thinking hmmm i should have taken a picture of that at the time. the more you take during this trip though the more you have to look at when you get back and you can start to be critical about what you like and don't like in your own photos

it's not quite the same problem although someone did mention that it dumps the flash completely every now and again. I'm going to be testing it again tomorrow i think it's most likely to be a loose shoe, i've seen this problem a lot on other forums

first thing, are you sure you need it at this point? I know when i first bought my 350d i thought about getting a long telephoto as well... but i've been fine without it, the only other thing is you realise that the effective length of that lens fully extended will actually be more like 120mm-480mm because of the crop factor

I think I found my answer on here

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CgSI

 

the first picture is the lighting i'm going for although obviously when i actually do the shoot i'll have a proper backdrop/lighting balance/model etc lol

I have to admit the st-e2 doesn't feel so secure on the hotshoe, I think the fact it just has the sliding locking pin doesn't help much

 

I hoped it was me being stupid and that it would have to go for repair though doh!

 

when it does work though its a godsend

"Now, it could be argued that a 105mm f/1.8 prime isn't readily available for the 350D"

 

but the 50mm f/1.8 prime is giving and effective focal length of 80mm for less than $100 and still one of my most used lenses

"By the way, The SONY R1 is not a DSLR, its just a DIGITAL CAMERA , and it is NOT expensive IF you cOnsider the VALUE of its lens and the convinience IT BRINGS."

 

yes but you point is completely invalid, the Sony R1 up until this month was sony's flashship camera, and really if you were into photography that much you'd more likely buy a camera that was cheaper, upgradable and wouldn't be out of date in a couple of months, if you aren't into photography that much and only take snapshots you'd buy a chepaer compact camera.

 

"Canon will have to go to 10 MP at least with their next release, otherwise they will be behind Nikon and Sony for a full product cycle, which at the moment is an eternity in the DSLR market"

 

Canon just can't possibly go into production with it... it makes no sense in the market. to compete with other cameras in it's class from other manufacturers is ont thing but to compete with it's own products is business suicide. besides nikon d50 and d70 are still on 6mp

I would say the easiest way of explaining the manual mode and not taking the recomendation would be to set yourself up for a landscape shot, you want the horizon to be on the bottom third of the image so you get mainly sky.

 

now if you take the meter reading there it will suggest what would make the perfect exposure for the sky... now move the camera down so the horizon is in the top third of the image so there's more ground than sky... you'll see the meter reading change. to get the correct exposure in this situation (unless you want to use an ND grad filter) you have to take two identically composed pictures with two different exposures one for the sky and one for the ground.

 

give it a go put the horizon on the bottom third set the meter to the middle and shoot... don't move the camera shoot the picture again, but adjust the shutter speed to underexpose the image (according to the meter) and at some point you'll see the ground perfectly exposed but the sky burnt out... combine the two images and hey presto you have a perfect exposure

I made the same change from an old Pentax Mx... i still can't get used to shooting in auto...

 

but the only problem i've found with the 350d is that your hand can get really tired if you're changing the aperture a lot using that above technique because the handgrip isn't great. apart from that the features are light years ahead of my old pentax :)

I've google searched it and searched on these forums but i can't seem to find

anyone else with my specific problem.

 

I am using my st-e2 to fire a 580ex and the sensor on the 580ex is almost

always pointed towards the camera. not that this matters because I'll use the

FEL button and the flash will fire then any subsequent pictures is a bit hit

and miss as to whether the flash will fire or not... sometimes the flash will

fire 80% of the time... other times the flash will fire maybe 2% of the time.

I should note i'm using the flash mainly indoors in a small room. i'm not

changing the camera position i'm taking exactly the same photograph. I'm

allowing the flash to recycle so I know it's not that. I thought it was

something to do with the signal not hitting the flash, but when it stops

firing i can go up to the flash and hold it right in front of the st-e2 and

still nothing.

 

The second problem i have, and i've never had this problem with the 580ex

attached to the hotshoe, is that i have the exposure and flash etc set up...

the flash (when it does) will fire and the flash level is perfect and exposure

is how i want it... i could take a shot with exactly the same settings a few

seconds apart (allowing it to recycle) and i can hear/see the flash go off

like it's been set to maximum power, and as a result i get a burnt out image...

 

Although some of the pictures that have come out like this looks very good,

it's not great for when i'm trying to achieve something else.

 

Any Ideas?

 

The following pictures were taken seconds apart<div></div>

well i don't think the next rebel would be a 10mp purely because the more expensive 30d still has 8.2

 

besides it's not about the pixel count, it's about how you use it, Nikkon have been sitting at 6mp and that hasn't harmed their sales because (even though i prefer canon) the camera's are still very good.

 

Sony are always releasing this and that, but their problem is that they never make things that are backwards compatible... i've had so many sony camera's/laptops all of them now useless. if i had just invested in an EOS camera all those years ago i would stil be able to get new products for them. It's like the release of the sony R-1 a few months ago. My work place was adament that they should get one instead of a 20d. a few months down the line they release the alpha range and now the expensive R-1 seems like a stupid choice.

"He's just bought Canon's cheapest entry-level SLR kit, so I would seriously doubt that he's looking at an $1100 lens!"

 

People have to start somewhere though, i've just spent about $900 on a lens and i have the same entry level kit... but then I needed something to make the switch from film to digital, and i carry my camera everywhere with me, so a 20d body is just to weighty and big... and the money i saved on the body went on buying Lenses.

 

"If you need dirt cheap, a used EF 300 4L USM goes for $600-750 and it's killer. Compared to the F2.8 version, a new EF 300 4L IS USM is almost free at $1100."

 

Personally if you are thinking about buying the F4 version, i would save up the extra and get the F2.8 it's not that much more expensive and your less likely to want to upgrade it to another 300mm afterwards.

Back in my day (i'm only 26) I learned using a pentax MX so there wasn't an auto option... or a Av Tv mode...

 

personally i'd agree with the consensus though just switch it to manual start taking pictures and learn from your mistakes... you'll learn more by making mistakes than always getting perfect.

 

one other thing though if you're going to use a manual mode use a custom white balance it can make all the difference!

Personally I would try and pick up a 20d (if you aren't used to the digital eos system, you're not gaining much by buying the 30d) saving that extra money and putting it towards lenses especially if you're thinking of going FF afterwards anyway. I know a few professionals that use the 20d rather than a FF camera and they aren't likely to change it anytime soon.

I normally use a grey card outdoors in the low light and get great results from it...

 

personally though i'd shoot in raw and adjust the white balance after because the light temperature can change very quickly