trevor_martin

<p>While I don't have sharpness issues I also find that shots taken with it have a lot more chroma than those taken with any other lens I own, but that's easy enough to fix in lightroom or dpp.</p>

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<p>My fastpack 250 has a water bottle pocket on the size and a laptop compartment that you could stick a few magazines into. It has an upper compartment above the camera section that could cary a lunch, but if you want something big enough to carry all of that plus a coat you're going to need to find something bigger. A camera and a few lens take up quite a bit of space afterall.</p>

<p>I currently use a hoya pro-1 circular polarizer, I used to have a B+W polarizer but I sold it. I could tell no difference between the hoya and the B+W. The B+W filters use brass rings instead of alumanime which some say is better, but I never found that to be reason spending the extra premium. That being said when I started out I used the cheapest, low-end circular polarizer (green box series). That filter eventually fell apart and when I replaced it with a more expensive one I discovered the cheap one had uneven polarization, so you don't want to go with the cheapest you can find either.<br>

Yes getting a step-up ring is one way to reduce costs. Personally, I have two circular polarizers that fit my two most common filter sizes and use step-up rings on the few oddballs. <br>

I buy all of my filters off of ebay from china which sell significantly cheaper. If you do this be sure the seller has a good feedback record. I've never had a problem but I have heard of at least one case where a seller with only a few feedback ratings sent a standard hoya filter in a box for a higher-end filter.</p>

<p>I second the Ciro-flex, I bought one years ago primarly because it was put together in my hometown and discovered it made a wonderful introduction to medium format photography. For a little more money look for a Yashica D, specifically one that comes with a Yashinon lens. This lens is quite sharp, and I found this camera to be a little easier to use in the field than the ciroflex. <br>

But either camera would do just fine as an introduction, and both are capable of producing fine images.</p>

<p>You're going to have some trouble if you are hoping to do all of that with a single lens. I'm assuming for the moment that you at least have the kit lens that came with the camera. I would suggest that you purchase the canon 50mm 1.8. On a crop camera the 50mm acts more like an 80m lens, which would make it a good starting portrait lens, it costs around $80 new. </p>

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<p>Well the 50d will have better build quality overall. It has a larger viewfinder which I think alone makes it worthwhile. The 50d also has a second control dial on the back, which I find makes it easier to set manual exposure and exposure compensation without pressing additional buttons. As for image quality both should be capable of producing fine pictures, and although I have never used either one of them (I use a 40d and have occasionally used a Rebel XTi), I doubt you'll see significant image quality differences between the two, although we'll have to wait till more reviews are published on the T1i.<br>

Personally I think the 50d would be more pleasent to use overall although you might perfer the lower weight of the rebel. Also don't rule out the 40d, it's a great camera that I am quite happy with and this would give you a little more money to spend on a good lens. Plus I see more complaints about the 50d's noise performance which could be a factor since you have indicated an intrest in night photography.</p>

<p>Could you be a little more specific about what you're looking for? Are you looking for a telephoto, wide angle, standard zoom? I think the 18-55 IS would be the first thing I would go for based on some brief experiance I had with it. This would give you a wide angle and a little more versitility than your 50mm.<br>

If you want a decent telephoto I used to have a sigma 70-300mm APO. It's not very fast, has slow autofocus and was a little soft at the long end. But it was perfect for me at the time as it was reasonably sharp for the price and I learned quite a bit using it. However I personally find a wide angle lens to be a little more versatile, and if I had to choose from your list above the 18-55mm for now, and would save up and get a telephoto zoom later.</p>

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<p>I have always been pleased with noise ninja, it seems to clean up the iso 1600 shot from my canon 40d just fine.</p>

<p>I don't think so. I think this is a manual focus only lens which means that it would have a canon FD mount, which will not fit on the EF-mount 400d.</p>

<p>I am also quite happy with copper hill products. I use their sensor sweep brush to dry clean a few times a month if needed. It works great and I see no reason to waste money on the expensive artic butterfly. I use the copperhill wet clean method only occasionally, which is pretty rare considering how well their dry brush works. I would get both the dry brush and supplies for wet cleaning as you'll probally need both eventually anyway. <br>

Wet cleaning requires a little more care, I really smudged up my sensor my first try, but with a little practice it becomes a fairly simple process.</p>

 

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<p>My apologies, I'm sorry for misreading that last part of your question. </p>

<p>If it worked the flash probally would only fire at full power as the canon camera wouldn't be compatible with the pentax flash and would be unable to control it's flash output.<br /> "I'm really not looking for "Don't try it if you don't know" kind of answers 'cause that's what I'll do if I can't find the real answer."<br /> Seriously? You would really risk destroying your camera for something that probably won't work properly on it anyway?</p>

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<p>Look on your lens for a symbol that looks like a 0 with a slash going through it, followed by a number such as 58, 67, or 77. The number is your filter size. I don't know about nikkor, but this is found somewhere around the front element on most of lens, but it's also on the lens body on at least one of mine.</p>

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