jmarshall

I'd second (or eighth) the suggestion to send the camera to the folks in Jamesburg, NJ. I live nearby, so I can drop stuff off when it needs repair. I've never had to leave a body, but I've had flashes and lenses fixed there. The work gets done quickly (usually within a week) and I've never had further problems.

 

Another suggestion if you really get nowhere. Your state government probably has some kind of consumer complaint hotline. We all think of lemon laws with respect to cars, but having to repair an item multiple times might qualify too. If there's such a department at your state, I'd contact them and the cc them on whatever correspondence you have with Canon from this point forward.

Rob -- insuring equipment that you own and rent to other people is, from an insurance standpoint, a completely different kind of business than a photography business.

 

If you have an insurance agent, start with him or her. If you need a referral to a commercial agency, check with the office of the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents or the Independent Insurance Agents of America in your state. If all that falls, stop by a local equipment rental shop (that rents stuff like power tools) and ask who they use for insurance. You'll be on a closer course than talking to people who insure photographers. Good luck!

If you want to start offering framed photos, it may make sense to try to work out a deal with a framer who's convenient for you. Bear in mind, though, they may want some assurance that the business volume will be there before they'll give you discounts. Most of the photographers in my area who offer framing services actually handle the framing work themselves with only a few frame and matting options.

 

Unless you've got a lot of demand for framed work (or a lot of time on your hands), it seems to me to be a lot of work to go through to frame one photo for one customer. If it were me, I'd tell her, politely and nicely, that you don't have sufficient demand to offer framing services at present. If you can give her a referral to a framer you've used personally, that might be a nice way to get out of spending a lot of effort for not a big return.

Britt - Maybe there's something particular about the countries you're going to, but the Lensrentals.com website says you can take the lens out of the US and still be covered under their insurance for damage (not theft anymore), as long as you notify them ahead of time that the lens is going out of country and that the lens is shipped to and from the US (i.e., no international shipping). If they've told you something different, please let us know -- I was hoping to rent the same 100 - 400 lens from them for an upcoming trip out of the US myself. Thanks.

PS -- if you need to break between US and outside, I pass by two post offices, and volunteer to be the person to send the camera outside the US.

Count me in, too.

 

I personally prefer color, but B&W would be OK.

 

Look forward to the results!

Brenda -- even if you don't want to actually sell the stuff on eBay, the quickest way today to get a sense of what people are willing to pay for it is to go onto eBay and check the "completed auctions with the past 30 days" feature. At least you'll know what's been paid for it recently. Then you can decide if it's worth trying to sell it or not.

While acknowledging the different technology, they've added ND filters to many pro-sumer digital camcorders. We bought a couple of Sony cameras in 2005 for about $5K each, and they have a "built in" ND "filter" that can be set to 1 or 2 stops. But it's not so clever that it can affect only the parts of the image that are getting blown -- it just operates as if an ND filter's been put on the lens.

James -- Just curious: have you bought all of this defective equipment from the same place?

Carlos -- before calling in a lawyer, check your contract to see if there was a time limit for placing the print order. When I got married, the contract was pretty clear that all orders for prints had to be made within a year from the wedding. Is it possible that there was a similar deadline which you've missed?

Andy - I live in NJ and have had no probem with orders from B&H or Adorama (though I've never tried to cancel anything). Neither charges sales tax on items shipped to NJ, as they don't have physical locations in New Jersey. Cheapest price to ship a 5D to my zip code in NJ is $21.75 from B&H. If you're planning to buy in the next few weeks from B&H or Adorama, check their website for holiday closings; B&H doesn't accept internet orders when the store is closed. The 20D is currently going for $2,539.95 at B&H.

 

I also buy camera equipment regularly from Amazon, which in addition to not charging sales tax also doesn't charge a shipping fee on most orders over $25, as long as the item is being shipped by Amazon and not a third party seller. Amazon's price on the 5D is currently $2,521.50. Between the difference in the camera price and no shipping fee, you'd save about $40/30 euro buying from Amazon at current prices.

Don't mean to hijack this thread, but Matt, it's past time for the music industry to move its licensing requirements into the 21st century.

 

If every time Carlos Santana used a picture of mine (and by every time, I mean for copy of every album with it on it) he paid me a dollar, personally, I'd be fine with that.

 

The music industry has created its own nightmare by insisting on insanely high licensing fees that encompass huge catalogs of music, 99.99% of which people would never use, while allowing the use of music by individuals for their "individual" use (if you know what I mean). Explaining to customers that, even though they bought the CD they want me to rip a song from to use on the soundtrack of their event DVD, I can't because that constitutes improper use is difficult because they know that THEY could do so.

 

Customers can take the DVD slideshow I put together, pop it into iMovie, pay $0.99 to download a song from iTunes, put it on the audio track and --voila-- they've got the song on THEIR DVD. And Apple, the music companies, etc. are all fine with this. But I cannot offer them a service that includes buying the song and putting it onto the track for them, even if I charge them the $0.99 * the number of DVDs I burn for them, and even if I repurchase the same song each time a customer wants to use it for a separate project.

 

I am perfectly willing to pay $1 per copy of a DVD slideshow for the use of each piece of copyrighted music on it. I make 10 copies of the slideshow, I pay $10 per piece.

 

I am NOT willing to pay $50,000+ a year for the rights to a music catalog, the VAST majority of which I'll never use, plus a percentage of sales for everything I sell.

 

Why doesn't PPA work with ASCAP and RIAA to create reasonable and sensible terms under which photographers can legitimately use music on slideshows for customers? All the current system does is encourage customers who want "their" songs on their event DVDs to utilize the services of unscrupulous companies while taking business away from people who want to do the right thing.

I would contact the highway patrol and ask for a copy of any incident report that was filed by the officer. If the answer is "there wasn't one," I don't think it would be out of line to -- politely -- ask if the treatment you received was routine.

 

I'm not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice, but I think you're certainly within your rights to have a copy of anything that may be on file about the discussion you had with the officer.

Dan -- Some women can do math ;)

 

Yes, the 17 - 85 is the equivalent of 28 - 135 when used on a camera with a 1.6 crop factor ... but the 28 to 135 becomes (effectively) a 45 to 215 when used on a camera with that same crop factor.

 

Realizing that the 28 - 135 will have an almost 60% longer effective reach on the telephoto end, and given that the OP is looking for more telephoto, I stand by my original comment that the 28 - 135, being used on an XTi with its 1.6 crop factor, makes more sense than a 17 - 85. Just my opinion.

Rebecca, I don't have kids myself, but I have spent a lot of time over the last 10 years taking pictures of my 7 nieces and nephews.

 

I'm going to guess that you're looking for a lens you can basically leave on the camera.

 

I'd suggest going with the 28 - 135 IS Canon zoom. Yes, it duplicates the lower end of the lens you've got now (probably the 18 - 55), but it's much longer at the long end. You'll be able to put the lens on and it will work for most shots you want. The downside to this lens is that when you are using it inside at 135, you may find that you can't get good shots unless the light is relatively strong.

 

Other options are the 28 - 200 zoom or, as several people have recommended, the 70 - 300 zoom (which I had the first version of). But the 28 - 200 doesn't have image stabilization, and with the 70 - 300, you might find you can't get far enough away from the subject when you don't want a close-up. And if you're watching the baby, you might not want to be distracted by changing the lens. Same thing with the 55 - 200, which is currently available.

 

As your daugther is only 11 months old, you're still a couple of years away from needing a lens to take shots in an auditorium. I'd wait and see what you need in this regard. You might find you have different needs in a lens if she turns out to be a soccer star rather than an actress!

 

Have fun!

PS -- being on the Atlantic, you're mostly looking at sunrise shots. But Cape May does have a beach where you can catch the sun setting over the water.

Cape May, NJ.

 

Great beach, lovely Victorian homes to shoot if you get bored with beaches, nice lighthouse, two bird sanctuaries. The Wildwood boardwalk (tacky, but lots of fun for nighttime shots) is nearby. Nice marina, too.

David -- you might want to try posting a different version of this in the Travel forum (cross-posting is a no-no).

 

Africa might mean "safari," but it also might mean SA wine country and beaches, which is where a colleague of mine went on her honeymoon. If he's looking for animal photos on a safari, he may be disappointed with the kit lens, but it will be fine for landscapes and any close-ups he can get of animals or people.

 

I agree that RAW is probably overkill for him. It would leave more ability to "correct" images in post, but as Jack points out how much post is he likely to want to do? I believe you can use RAW in P-mode, but I wouldn't recommend it for that reason.

 

The 30D has picto-graph settings: use the woman for people shots, the mountains for landscapes and the running man for action shots. At least it will be a little better than just leaving it on auto. If you think that's too much for him to handle, leaving it on auto will produce shots that are still probably far better than what he's used to anyway.

Mark -- you don't mention when you're going to Vegas. Just be aware that services at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon generally shut down in mid-October. Highway 67, which is main access road to the north rim, usually closes sometime in mid to late October due to snow, although it may be open later if the weather is mild. I was planning a winter time trip to Vegas, but am now reconsidering because you can't get to the North Rim. Have fun!

There's some information about a recent trip to the Palouse on Luminous Landscape, including a link to an issue of Photograph America that focused on the area. A downloadable PDF is $8.50<p><a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/locations/palouse.shtml">Link</a> to LL<p><a href="http://www.photographamerica.com/issue54.htm">Link</a> to Photograph America issue. Looks like these issues run to about 16 pages of info on each location.

While these are interesting recommendations, my experience from years of nieces and nephews selling magazine subscriptions as fund-raisers (in the US) is that you're unlikely to find any UK or really "serious" photo magazines in the fund-raising offerings. The only photo mags I've ever seen are Popular Photography and, once, Outdoor Photography (OP).

 

My personal impression is that PopPhoto has a greater % of ads than OP, but both are pretty ad-heavy. If you want to stick to general photo mags, I find that Shutterbug has more editorial content than PopPhoto, but I don't know if you'd find it on the fund-raiser listing.

 

If you feel compelled to subscribe to something to support the kids, Sam's right: a general interest magazine with photos of a genre you're interested in (e.g., Sports Illustrated or Travel + Leisure) might be a better way to spend your money. There's always National Geographic, too. Even better would be making a donation directly to the group that's sponsoring the fundraiser; $25 right in its pocket is better than a cut of the $25 you might spend on subscriptions.

 

Another magazine I've been reading lately is Photo District News. It seems to have the most editorial content/least advertising of any of the widely-available, US national photography magazines I've read. But it may be more business and less technique oriented than you're looking for.

Link didn't work. Let me try again.<p><a href="http://www.editorialphoto.com/copyright/primer.asp">Link to Editorialphoto.com</a>

Silvan -- about 4/5 of the way down on the page I provided the link for, there's a brief description of the filing requirements for an "unpublished collection." There may be more details on the form used to register copyright in Visual Arts, originally called Form VA. I should say here that I'm not a lawyer; I spent about 10 years running an intellectual property licensing program which is where I picked some of this info up. Googling "copyright" and "unpublished collection" turned up <a href"http://www.editorialphoto.com/copyright/primer.asp">this</a> site, which may provide more of the details you're looking for. The info is from 2000, though, and may not be up-to-date. There were plenty of results to the search, so I'm sure you can find more info out there.<p>Sam, I was lifting information from the US Copyright Office site. Sorry if the information was incorrect. I did think, though, that copyright violation claims had to be filed in federal court, not state or local. Thus, if you can't get access to federal court without registering, you've got no ability to take legal action.

Unless you've registered the copyright in the photos, you can't take legal action anyway. US Copyright law requires copyrights to be registered before an infringement suit can be filed. For $45 (if I'm reading correctly), you can file an "unpublished collection" of work. Probably $45 well spent. And posting a photo on the internet doesn't appear to constitute "publication" under US copyright law.<p>

The best way to protect your images is to put a copyright notice on them. If you object to a watermark, try positioning a copyright notice along the side or bottom (a la Getty Images). See <a href="http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#pub">Copyright Office Basics</a>

Justin -- Where do you live? What kind of contract are you talking about? Those two factors will have a lot to do with how much you're likely to have to pay.