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<p>1.4 is a great lens. With the digital magnification factor it gets close to being a great portrait lens. Try shooting in an aperture mode with more or less DOF. It really works with exisiting light in front of a North facing window. Practice with with an adult model until you get the facial angles you like the best. Then put your child in a chair and shoot, shoot, shoot. You are almost guaranteed to get some keepers, especially in B&W. </p>

<p>Lowepro Dryzone will give you both protection and quick access for the stops and side trips. If there are stretches of quiet water you'll can also have quick access to your camera. Stow your gear when you are in fast moving water. You might want to consider a couple of zooms since with all primes you'll be changing lenses a lot in high humidity conditions. Also, for about $50/year you can get insurance coverage for about $3,000 worth of camera gear, be sure to tell your agent you are going out of country.</p>

 

I would think that you 24-70 2.8 would be an excellent choice. Four years ago I had an opportunity to be under the bucket at a Big 12 BBall game. I brought 24 2.8, 50 1.4 and 70-200. The 24mm lens was the best for under the rim shots.

e-commerce is 24x7. You can't let people into your store and then refuse to to take their order. It's a slap in the face. Anytime you force your loyal customers to make a second virtual trip to your website is a violation of the tenets of good customer service. B&H also have a new policy on "out of stock" items. You can't place the order until the item is back in stock and then you have to pay the additional shipping charges. B&H have been such a wonderful company to deal with. Now B&H seem to emphasize themselve over the customer.

I just bought a 17-40 4.0 L (U.S.) lens from B&H last week. The Canon Warranty card says "International Warranty" for U.S. & Canada.

The mat should either compliment the picture or blend with surroundings, or both. Most importantly it keeps your print from bleeding onto the glass when framed. Cresent Very White (918) white core works well with both color and b&w and is quite economical. It seems to be the choice for many artists and photographers. It is beautifully matched with Nielsen's N97-156 (Florentine Black) square molding. I've been using Framingsupplies.com for mat board, foamcore and sleeves. Visit art shows to see what others are using.

Eye Controlled Focus (ECF) was intoduced on the Canon EOS5 about 12 years ago. It doesn't work for sports, but is great for landscapes.

ECF is great for landscape photographers who believe in the Rule of Thirds. As a EOS5 and Elan7E owner I found a great use for ECF. The Elan 7E has a lever that that allows you to turn ECF on or off. You could select ECF or Center Focus on the fly which comes in handy when you are taking candid portraits.

I would love my 20D even more if it had ECF similar to my 7E.

Thanks for the responses. I found www.americansouthwest.net/arizona/tonto/national_forest.html which has great info (maps and pictures) on the area lots of other places in Arizona and other states as well.

I have to attend a technical class in Cave Creek, Arizona in mid

March. Are there any notable landscape compositions in the Tonto

National Forest that would be worth photographing? Is there

anything like Tucson's Sabino Creek area that is good for day hike?

Susan, I use sRGB and Parameter 2 settings on my 20D and tweak shaprness, saturation and temperature in Elements 3. I get outstanding color prints on both Epson's enhanced matte and water color-rw with my Epson R1800. Since I do not have a monitor calibration system I waste some ink and paper with 5x7 proofs until I get the color right.

You'll get used to the 20D viewfinder quickly. The only thing you will miss is the 7E's eye controlled focus. Other than that you will love the 20D and all the benefits of going digital.

I love my 20D, but I miss the "Eye Control" focus that was available

on both my Canon EOS5 and Elan 7E. The 7E was the best because I

used either eye control focus or preselected center focus (for

sports) by turning a little knob on top of the 7E.

On the 20D I can manually control the focusing point (center or one

of eight other points) with the focus button and main dial. Not

real handy. If you don't manually select the focus point then you

get what the 20D wants to focus, but not what you want.

Have I overlooked a better way to focus in the 20D instruction book?

I would appreciate comments from those who used to use eye control.

I've been sending film (fuji NPA, Reala,etc.) to mpix.com since last september. Very happy with quality and $0.99 for a 5x7's.

My 20D won't download pictures to my computer. Canon Technical

Support originally claimed this was MS/Windows Image Acquistion

problem. I hired a MS/Windows certified techician who found

otherwise. Together we again contacted Canon Technical Support and

after testing with 2 different computers Canon agreed the problem

was with either the USB port or Canon supplied USB cable. I am

sending my 20D to Canon to repair.

Has Anyone else had a problem with their 20D USB port?