obi-wan-yj

Next month, I'm going on a 4-day back-country hiking trip with some friends to

Oregon's Wahtum Lake. I'm from the Midwest and have never been to the Pacific

NW, so I want to make the most of my time there. My friends will all carry

point & shoot cameras in their pockets, but I plan to carry about 8 lbs of DSLR

gear. My quandry is how to carry all that gear along with my normal backpack &

35-40 lbs of hiking gear. Of course I want my camera stuff (at least the body &

two lenses) to be readily accessible without having to remove & open my main

backpack, so I need to find some way to attach it to my chest or waist.

 

Here's a list of the equipment I hope to take:

 

Required:

 

Canon Rebel XTi/400D body,

Sigma 17-70 lens,

Canon 70-300 IS lens,

spare batteries & CF cards, a

58mm polarizer, and a

beanbag

 

Desired, but optional:

 

Pentax Super-Takumar 50/1.4 and 135/3.5 lenses,

various reversing rings, adapters, and diopters to use the Pentax lenses for

low-light & macro shots, and a cheap aluminum tripod (about 3 lbs)

 

The optional stuff can all be packed away inside the main backpack if necessary,

because I'm unlikely to use it except during lunch breaks or at base camp. My

17-70 lens is a 1:2 macro for flower shots encountered on the trail. I don't

want to just rely on the neck strap to suspend my body & main lens, because I

can't have it flopping around while I'm hiking. I'm thinking that whatever I

take will have to either strap to my waist (without pulling down my pants) or

attach to the chest straps on my big backpack. I also need those containers to

be waterproof, in case we encounter any rain.

 

Do any of you have any suggestions?

I finally got pictures. It's a Velbon "Super Ace." Aside from being quite heavy (and presumably sturdy), it appears to be a standard, low-end tripod. No quick-release. It has center cross supports, so it won't sit flat. I think I'll pass on it.

I also have the Lowepro Mini Trekker AW. I'm mostly happy with it. The tripod holder is a joke, as you can't get into the bag with the tripod attached. I also wish it had some small, external pockets for storing batteries & CF cards so that I didn't have to open up the entire bag (removing the tripod) just to swap them.

 

It's probably bigger than you want for just a body and one lens, though. Here's what I store in mine:

 

Canon XTi body

Sigma 17-70 lens

Canon 28-80 lens

Canon 70-300 lens

Opteka 500/8 lens (13" long, 3" diameter)

Pentax Super-Takumar 50/1.4 lens (2" sphere)

Pentax Super-Takumar 135/3.5 lens (4" long, 2" diameter)

Canon 430EX flash, off-camera cord, and Stofen diffuser

All my cards, batteries, & small accessories.

 

With all that, it still has a large, external pocket in which you can store snacks, notebooks (paper, not computer), or other objects.

 

The backpack configuration is rather inconvenient, as you can't get into it while wearing it. It's a nice way to carry all your stuff in one place, though, and it's easy to hike with. The top loaders are probably a better bet for you.

I've been wanting a more sturdy tripod than the 2-lb $35 model I've currently

got, but I haven't wanted to pay new prices for one.

 

A local seller is unloading a Velbon tripod for $25. The only identifying mark

she an find on it is "I-222". She says it's heavy and pro-quality, and that it

has a bubble level and a carrying case. It was bought new with a Nikon F90

body, so it's older. She lives on the far side of town, so I haven't seen it

yet; I wanted to find out first if it was worth my time & gas to see it first

hand. A google search for "Velbon 222" turns up nothing related, so I think

I-222 must not be the tripod's model number.

 

Have any of you heard of this tripod? Does Velbon generally make good quality

tripods? Amazon sells their tripods from $50 to $300. I'm wondering if maybe

what she really has is a Manfrotto 222 joystick-grip ball head on her Velbon

tripod. Do any of you have any comments on that setup?

Have you compared that Kenko Pro against any other teleconverters to see how it stacks up?

 

When you tape the pins, does that mean the camera has no knowledge of what the lens's aperture is set to? I.e., no aperture info in the EXIF data, and no ability to stop the lens down beyond wide open?

Thanks for the link. I guess Canon elaborates a little more in the manuals for their $1500 lenses than in those for their $500 lenses.

Most Canon IS lenses have two modes--one where the image is stabilized in both

dimensions, and another where it's stabilized in only one dimension for use when

tracking a moving object. All the Canon docs I can find use auto racing as the

example for mode 2. Does this mean that the mode only works when panning

horizontally in landscape mode? What about in portrait mode (tracking a

football player, for example)? What about moving at an odd (but relatively

straight) angle when tracking a flying bird? Would IS mode 2 work for those, or

am I stuck with mode 1?

 

The specific lens in question is my Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM, although I

imagine all Canon's IS lenses designed during this decade work the same way.

When you say "detail," do you mean a 100% crop, or a scaled down version of the entire photo? If the former, from where in the image was this taken?

I know about the probable lack of AF. That was a compromise I chose to live with in order to get a sharp, light-weight, inexpensive telephoto lens. I'm used to manually focusing my el-cheapo 500/8, and I can do it with some degree of accuracy, but the results from that lens are suitable only for screensavers, not prints.

 

For shooting wildlife, I would have preferred something like Sigma's 80-400 or Canon's 100-400. However, I'm also a "soccer dad." I rented the 100-400 for a day and shot my son's midget football game. After an hour of pacing up & down the sidelines with that beast, I decided that I'm not ready for a 4-lb lens at this stage in my life. I'm also planning a 4-day backpacking trip this summer, and the three pound difference between the 80-400 and my 70-300 is significant.

 

So, the 70-300 plus a 1.4x teleconverter seemed to be a better way to get to 400+mm, at least until I start making enough money off photography to subsidize my lens purchases.

 

There seem to be two classes of 3rd party teleconverters: "consumer grade" TC's for about $100, and "pro grade" TC's for $200. It seems the latter will support wider apertures, but my fastest telephoto lens is only f/4-5.6. Is there any other difference between these two? Am I likely to get better image quality from the pro grade?

When buying my latest telephoto zoom for my XTi/400D, I had to compromise, and

ended up getting the Canon 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS. It's a fine lens at that focal

length, but I really need something longer for wildlife, and buying another $1K

super-tele lens is out of the question.

 

I think a 1.4x tele-extender would work best for me right now. Since most of my

wildlife shots are near dusk, I don't want a 2x teleconverter, as manual

focusing in dim light at f/11 on my XTi's viewfinder is terribly difficult. In

reading a number of reviews, it seems there's a wide difference in image quality

among teleconverters. I upgraded lenses to gain IQ, and I don't really want to

lose it again with a teleconverter. What would be the best teleconverter to get

to maintain full electronic functionality for Canon non-L EF and EF/S lenses? I

suppose I could live with EF only (not EF/S), since my longer lenses are all EF,

and only my wide angles are EF/S.

 

Although I currently use a crop sensor, I hope to upgrade to a 5D someday, so I

don't want to buy something that vinettes badly on a FF sensor.

 

Any first hand experience with good or bad 1.4x teleconverters?

OK, this is a stretch, but I'm really at a loss here.

 

Last month, I sent my Canon 400D/XTi into Canon USA's repair center to get the

sensor replaced. It had firmware 1.0.5 when I sent it in. For the previous six

months or more, I'd been using a SanDisk Extreme III 8GB compactflash card as my

primary card, and it always worked fine.

 

When I got it back, the sensor was great, and it was running the latest firmware

1.1.1. In an effort to rest my file number counter to where I'd left it, I had

to reformat my 8GB CF card in the camera.

 

Ever since then, my computers have had issues trying to read data off that (and

only that) CF card. Both these computers are less than 6 months old and run

Ubuntu Gutsy Linux. One of them used to read the 8GB card just fine in its

internal card reader. The other computer was bought new while the camera was

getting repaired, but it uses the same external USB card reader that I've always

used. Both computers recognize the card, but when reading from it heavily, the

computer locks up for 10 or so seconds at a time before resetting the USB

device, filling my syslogs with:

 

usb 1-1: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 13

 

I am able to successfully transfer all my photos eventually, but I have to

restart the transfer after each reset. I've tried reformatting that card a

couple times, but to no avail. Both these computers still read all my other CF

cards (including a Kingston 4GB) just fine. None of these working cards has

been reformatted under the new firmware.

 

Has anybody else had any problems with firmware 1.1.1, especially in regard to

formatting your CF cards? I've got a few more things I want to try, but I

wanted to put out feelers in case this is a known issue.

FW800 is a pretty new development. If your PC has it, Acer would have advertised it heavily. If it's a low-end motherboard, it has 400. If in doubt, you can probably find specs on Acer's web site.

Canon's Ee-S, Ee-D, and Ee-A focusing screens all fit the 5D. They also make some that fit the 30D & 40D. They're hard to find on Canon's site, but visit http://www.adorama.com and search for "canon focus screen."

 

Ee-S:

http://www.adorama.com/ICASEES.html?searchinfo=canon%20focus%20screen%20Ee-S&item_no=1

 

Ee-D:

http://www.adorama.com/ICASEED.html?searchinfo=canon%20focus%20screen%20Ee-S&item_no=8

 

Ee-A:

http://www.adorama.com/ICASEEA.html?searchinfo=canon%20focus%20screen%20Ee-S&item_no=17

What's different about the shutter button on the 5D? I've only used one for a minute or two in the store, and I didn't notice anything unusual.

 

I think Canon themselves make a split prism for the 5D now. It's a recent development.

 

Your statements that the 40D focuses faster than the 5D and has near equal noise at 1600 are both news to me. I expected the 5D to be better at both, especially the latter.

 

The difference between 10-13 MP is inconsequential to me.

OK, my lunch hour meeting got out early, so I've got more time to elaborate on my situation. Most of my shooting is nature and candids. During the winter, it's almost all candids. Most of those are my kids playing, or family events, or public gatherings. Most of those are in suboptimal light. I don't have any IS lenses, but I do have an AF 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5, a manual 50/1.4, and a manual 135/3.5 that see a fair bit of use. Although I do have a 430EX flash, I don't like to use it for candids because it distracts my subjects. Hence, I find myself shooting at ISO 1600 (or at best 800) most of the time. Many of my shots that are well-composed turn out to be very grainy, or slightly blurred, or both. The faster manual lenses help that somewhat and don't cost much (comparatively), but they're difficult to focus accurately. I'm a hands-on tinkerer, and would like to get more fast, inexpensive, high-quality manual lenses that are older than I am because it makes the act of shooting more fun for me. Of course I'll keep a few AF lenses for general walk-around use, and I want an IS super-telephoto someday.

 

So those are my biggest complaints about my photography results right now.

 

Am I going down the right path for a solution? A 5D would solve some of my problems, but is it the best solution? The 5D is starting to get long in the tooth, and some aspects aren't as good as my 400D, let alone a 40D, but do those matter?

 

Would a Pentax K10D provide enough advantages for me to be worth buying all new accessories & learning a new interface?

 

Maybe I should just give up on the old-school manual lenses and get a couple IS lenses for my 400D and be done with it. :-(

FYI, the following link compares a 400D vs 30D vs 5D (they don't have info on the 40D yet).

 

http://photonotes.org/cgi-bin/camera-lookup.pl?camera1=eos400d&camera2=eos30d&camera3=eos5d&camera4=*&camera5=*

I've had my Canon 400D (XTi) for a year now. While the vast majority of my

shooting is with AF lenses, I do enjoy using older manual lenses and would like

to expand my collection beyond the two Super-Takumars that I currently have.

The biggest problem with my 400D is the dark, small, POS viewfinder that makes

manual focusing nearly impossible. The other significant problem is the

high-ISO noise from the smaller sensor.

 

I've just found what appears to be a smoking deal on a lightly used 5D, which

would significantly improve both of those shortcomings. Of course, even if I

sell my 400D, it's still a big chunk of change.

 

Have any of you moved from a 400D to either a 40D or a 5D and would like to

comment on any good or bad aspects of the move? Are the viewfinder & ISO noise

improvements really that significant? Was the change in user interface hard to

get used to? Were there any down sides to the move that I may not be considering?

 

Another option I've considered is moving to a Pentax K10D, with its in-body IS

and weather sealing. I'm concerned about the lack of AF lenses for walk-around

use, though.

 

What do the experts have to say about this?

No, I don't have anything misconfigured. The key word there is "decent." I'm sure SanDisk makes a good external reader. Cheap readers, however, support only the lowest UDMA or PIO modes, which severely limits their maximum bandwidth, regardless of the card they're reading. It's not too hard to find a fast external reader, but I don't have any spare, unused USB ports, and I now have multiple card formats for which I need readers. An internal all-in-one reader that fills a drive bay and connects to the internal USB or FireWire header on the motherboard is the ideal solution -- assuming, again, that I can find a fast one. The user reviews on online retailers like NewEgg are full of people reporting dreadfully slow 2-3 MBps transfer times for their cheap internal readers, so I won't buy one that I don't know for certain is fast.

Downloading a full 8GB card at 2 MBps will take over an hour. If that were the best that state of the art technology could deliver, then I could live it it, but it's not, and I can't. The card can handle 20 MBps, which will download that same card in less than 7 minutes. If I can shave an hour off my download time for every full card by merely spending another $20 on a better card reader, I'll do it in a heartbeat. The hard part seems to be finding such a card reader.

My current external reader isn't. The OmniFlash will do better than my SanDisk Extreme III cards (20 MBps).

 

However, I now need a multi-card internal reader, and every internal reader I've been able to find specs on is far slower than my cards. 2-3 MBps is typical. If you have one that can sustain better than 15 MBps when transferring from a card, I'm all ears.

Anybody? Doesn't anybody use an internal card reader that didn't come built into their PC? I guess I'm on my own to find a good one...

I've been very pleased with my OmniFlash external USB card reader, which is

reportedly the fastest available for USB. Now that I've got a new computer, I'd

like to get an internal card reader (either 3.5" or 5.25") that will also

support multiple card formats. However, I still don't want to give up the

faster speeds that I've gotten used to with the Omniflash. I know that UDMA

cards are starting to become more common, so I wouldn't mind getting a

compatible card reader if I could. I definitely want to get a fast reader that

will support multiple card formats.

 

Do any of you have FAST internal card readers that you'd recommend? No, I don't

want to just leave an external reader hanging from a cord all the time. Most of

the cheap readers are capable of far less than the 20 MBps that my Extreme III

card can handle, never mind the full 480 MBps that USB 2.0 supports.

Thanks a lot! I just had the same thing happen to my 400D/XTi, and those instructions worked perfectly.

I got the same one from eforcity (via Amazon) that was mentioned earlier. It looks like the price is even lower now than when I bought it. Again, except for brand name printed on the battery, I can't tell any difference between the two. I'd definitely buy one again if I needed another.

 

http://www.amazon.com/EFORCITY-Replacement-Premium-Powershot-Camcorders/dp/B000I6QWP8/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1195061495&sr=8-2

I bought my XTi in March. I have the original Canon battery plus a no-name second battery that I bought at the same time for $6 + S&H. After eight months and 16,000 photos (almost all without the flash), both batteries still last about the same amount of time (700 shots). I alternate batteries, and never put one on the charger until it goes dead. 700 photos is more than I can fit on all my cards, so this procedure works fine for me. So far, I can't tell any difference between the $50 Canon battery and the $6 no-name.

 

The XTi does have a smallish grip, but I have medium-sized hands, so it's acceptable (but noticeable) for me. If you've got larger hands, the grip might make it feel better. The extra grip won't extend the "handle" outward to the side of lens any, though, which is where I really find the XTi's grip lacking. By comparison, the 30/40D is much more comfortable to hold.