The Canon thread

Or, the "they want HOW much?" thread.

500d just out, will do full HD video. $800 in the US, but a whopping £900 for Britishiers. Can that really sell against a £600 Nikon d90?

Oh wow! I noticed that Nikon had one with full HD video nd now canon.

Well, the Nikon D90 does 720p, the Canon 500D/5D2 do 1080p. I think the 5D2 is considered good enough to use for commercial video shoots (in fact, a car commercial has been done with one) but the video mode on the D90 is just an add on, really - no autofocus and the sensor doesn't refresh fast enough, so you get motion skew when you move the camera. I'd be interested to see what the HD video is like in the new Panasonic hybrid model.

But this is the Canon thread. What are they up to? Gapless sensor tech? Where can you go with that if you're not gonna make the sensor bigger or the pixels bigger (and hence fewer)? Nikon are stomping on them right now.

I hadn't realised that the 500d costs more than the 50d in the UK. Nutters.

Not really. The RRP for the 50D recently shot up to £1300 (meaning you can realistically still find it for £900-odd) but the 500D is being launched at £900 so that'll be £750 in the shops before long. It's still crazy but you could maybe see Canon reworking the range a bit here - perhaps dropping the xxD line and having two semi-pro full-frame models (3D and 7D?), or one full-frame and one high-speed APS-H/EF-S compatible (replacing the 1D3). At the bottom end, a 2000D for £400-odd and maybe an EF-S mount hybrid below that?

Ah, yeh I'd forgotten they put the RRPs up across the board, was just going by the Calumet pricing.

I wonder how much the British market ultimately matters to them. Certainly the US one is still pretty competitive, price-wise -- the 5D is cheaper than the d700, and so on. They still seem to be fitting into their usual brackets there, which makes me think they won't see the need for a reshuffle.

But that's going to leave our range a bit mad-looking for a while yet. Where are my old certainties when I need them?

Chap at work has just sold his Nikon D90 - in order to buy a Canon EOS 500D. He found the video skew/wobble on the D90 pretty intolerable and has had a play with a 500D, which he reckons is superior. I'm not convinced it's going to be anything other than more of the same (another gripe was no control of shutter speed in video mode, but it's the same with the 500D AFAIK).

he should buy a video camera, maybe.

I think he has a couple of video cameras; as he leans towards video but fancied a DSLR, the D90 was the obvious choice. I don't know how the CMOS sensors in yr actual (consumer-level) HD video cameras compare to those in the Nikon and Canon DSLRs in terms of refresh rate - I assume they don't exhibit as much wobble.

If your friend really wants a DSLR-like camera that does video have him take a look at the Panasonic GH1; stereo mic on board, with input for external stereo mic, and a kit superzoom lens with dampened/near-silent AF operation and IS. Quite pricey though. Pardon my ignorance, but what does shutter speed control net you with recording video?

One of his gripes with the D90 was the strobing effect under fluorescent light - I guess this is a combination of frame-rate and shutter-speed (one of which is fixed, the other is auto). I suspect he'll encounter the same thing on the 500D. (Yes, Panny GH1 or new Olympus DP-1 look terrific for this kind of thing; he's excited about the Olympus launch down the road from our office tomorrow evening - with David Bailey! - so perhaps it's not too late for him to reconsider.)

With a higher shutter speed you can shoot wide-open in daylight, for example; the 5D2 has just recently had a firmware update to allow manual setting of shutter speed, aperture, ISO in video mode - clips I'd seen online were obviously suffering from the camera auto-ing everything but that's now not a problem. I think Stet has had a play with a 5D2...

I have, and was pretty blown away. The quality was superb, although the auto exposure was a pain: totally killed a couple of dof effects mid-shot.

Also, some of the stuff with movement in didn't seem realistic on playback. It wasn't on panning shots, so not the same thing as the D90. Stepping through frame-by-frame revealed it, though: no motion blur at all. There was one shut of a pigeon walking through and taking flight, and every single frame was pinsharp and blur-free. Very impressive: I can now see sense in the people who suggest that one day print shots might just be pulled from a video stream.

A little apropos of nothing but I bought two lenses in Tokyo. WOOHOO. Set me back about 550 euros. The cheapest was the 50 mm (obv) but OH GOD I LOVE IT!!! I also got a big lens (which goes up to 200 mm). That was expensive but def worth it.

Cor, is it one of the white Canon lenses? 70-200 f/4L? I must admit, although Live View on the 40D has given my old Zeiss 135mm manual lens a new lease of life (accurate focusing!), a proper autofocus telephoto would be a good thing to have. Kids don't stay still for long.

Has anyone with the appropriate* EOS DSLR tried getting it to record video, like this?

(* - Live View but no video, e.g. 1000D, 450D, 40D, 50D, 1D3, 1Ds3)

I am aware that there's a firmware hack out there specifically for the 40D which allows untethered video capture (silent, of course - none of these cameras have mics) onto a CF card but it's much lower quality and dodgy firmware hacks seem much more risky than some Russian .exe. Erm, maybe. Very glad of the firmware hack on my old 300D, mind (but it was like that when I got it).

CANON

Talking of firmware hacks, these guys are doing sterling work on the 5D2. No AGC! Stereo audio meters! Letterboxing!

Ok - that Russian software works - here is a silent video recording from the 40D.

Not a steady frame-rate but quite good fun. Anyone with a 1000D can do this too, looking at no one in particular...

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH I gotta try this. Uh, it's on a PC, right? We have one, so probably will give it a try.

Cor, is it one of the white Canon lenses?

Nope. Black.

Also, which uh thingie do I download from zee Russians?

Follow the link on this vid (not the one above as I've de-public'd it now) and choose the latest "setup" link (0.1.9 beta 2 was the one I've installed).

Once installed, connect yr 1000D to the PC via USB cable, switch the camera on and then run the EOS Camera Movie Recorder. You should hear your mirror flip up and a window will appear a la Canon's EOS Utility, showing Live View. Difference being, you can record that feed with the "Write!" button. The "CAF" button is greyed out when connected to a 40D - I don't know if you get that option. "AF" is a very slow contrast autofocus function (which the 40D does not have at all as a standard feature). Of course, you can manually focus on the lens itself or with the ">>", etc buttons. The video output is uncompressed AVI (about 300MB/minute) at 1024x680 (i.e., the 3x2 aspect of the sensor). That Russian site seems to suggest that the output from the 1000D is 768x512, so upscaling to 1280x720 HD when compressing for Flickr might not look quite as good. The original AVIs look stunning though - much better than the Flickr upload.

This looks rather good... will give it a go on my 450D in the morning!

Just in case: Google translation of that Russian page:

http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=y&u=http%3A%2F%2Fvalexvir.narod.ru%2F&sl=ru&tl=en&history_state0=

For the record, it all worked remarkably smoothly first time despite all those Russian caveats about "x may cause y to fail". And the DOF function is interesting because it's using DOF-preview to stop down the lens but the Live View maintains the brightness of the image (up to a point - haven't experimented but I expect you lose light from f/11 or so) by boosting the ISO. (That video of my kids from upthread - which is now no longer public - the last third was f/5.6 and very grainy).

Curious about how many times the shutter has fired on your Canon? This utility has the answer. (But only for sub-pro Digic III/IV bodies - so 40D/50D/450D/500D/1000D/5D2).

As of last night, my 40D had achieved 26,057 actuations. Lightroom reports 6,123 shots with this camera since I got it in February; considering how many I delete from the camera or wipe from LR, that probably means close to 8,000 total actuations. This was a pro's backup body for just over a year before I had it, so I guess he shot the remaining 18,000+. The 40D's shutter is rated for 100k so should be OK for a while yet...

Canon have spent 7 weeks dicking around with my camera instead of repairing it, and I'm not getting a replacement model on Monday. Wish I'd done more than 20,000 exposures now!

I can't believe it takes that long! They should just give you a new 1000D at this point, surely?

Canon repaired and returned my 1000D (Err 99) in less than a week!

That's what they're doing; shop don't have one in stock mATM though, hence one being posted today and not getting here till Monday.

I meant NOW getting a replacement one on Monday, btw!

Now playing with Canon's Picture Styles quite a bit. If you shoot raw then they're of no interest to you (though Canon's DPP software does allow you to apply them to raw images and Lightroom have "simulated" them in the camera calibration menu) but they do seem like a possibly-fun in-camera version of Lightroom presets for JPEG shooters.

The (massive) restriction being that you have to connect the camera to a PC and upload a Picture Style (I found 30-odd interesting-looking ones on the web) to one of the three available "user-defined" slots.

They're also a bit of a mystery in terms of how they arrive at their effects to anyone who doesn't use DPP and the Picture Style editor (i.e., me). Fiddling with contrast, sharpening, saturation and colour tone on the camera is easy enough but there's also an overriding "style" (Canon offers Portrait, Natural, Landscape, etc as starting points) which seems to change the base point for all those settings or change more subtly the way the camera deals with colour temperature, skin tones, etc. Also, Lightroom doesn't retain this info when you import the JPEGs (I don't think), so if you've deleted images from a card, you can't see how you achieved a certain effect.

Anyway, I'm going to have a little Lightroom-free SOOC period and see what I come up with.

This one was Standard style, Sharp: 7, Contrast: +4, Saturation: +4, Colour Tone: +2 - like one of the vivid Fuji films...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2636/3782137721_114e81007f.jpg

This one was Monochrome with a green filter and high contrast and sharpening...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2025/3730257349_84eb05ded8.jpg

My HV30 is like my best friend!

not exactly, i actually bought a really cheap camera and i also shoot with that at the exact same time because i'd rather have a camera w/ its own aesthetic (shut up, i'm not a cinematographer, ffs)

I HAVE A CAMERA AGAIN

the new G11 looks kinda neat! interesting they admitted that fitting more megapixels doesn't lead to higher IQ - but how will they convince people to buy it now that it has less MP??

I'm way more likely to look at it now that they've done that, at least. Like the sound if the high ISO, too, even at 2.5mp

I'm still doubtful of how much high ISO performance they can squeeze out of a small sensor - but Canon has pretty advanced sensor tech

the S90 also looks very cool, very clean, with f/2 on the wide end (28mm) - looks like both a LX3 and a ricoh GR-D killer

http://www.whatdigitalcamera.com/imageBank/cache/p/PowerShot_S90_2-580.jpg_e_73f443efabf26c471b9196c95ee21761.jpg

oooh now that does look like a toy that i would like to have.

Like the sound if the high ISO, too, even at 2.5mp

Is this pixel-binning? I know some of the medium-format backs do this (cutting resolution by 75% is less of an issue if you've got 40MP to start with I guess). Good stuff. Two-stop gain in sensitivity, I think, so ISO 12800 might be rubbish but ISO 1600 at 2.5MP should be as clean as ISO 400 at 10MP.

MJ - not sure, but I know Fuji released a camera awhile ago that claimed to do this; however the results weren't too spectacular...

hands on with the S90 here:

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/news.phtml/26446/gallery/canon-powershot-s90-camera-gallery-1.html#image

biggest plus for me is the fully retractable lens with no lens cap, which solves the major complaint I have about the LX3..

new 7D announced today, APS-C but has a bigger viewfinder and can do 8fps (!!) - imagine this is the camera to have if you're a sports photographer and also happen to own the 100-400 L.

DPReview has the hands-on, as usual

The 7D looks very good but I need to have a look at the DPR forums to see what I've forgotten to moan about ;)

Also: the venerable 100/2.8 Macro (a lens I've long coveted) finally gets upgraded to "L" status with the addition of hybrid IS. It seems it will co-exist with the older model (in the same way there are four varieties of 70-200L), which means I'm probably out of luck as far as sudden price drops are concerned.

No FF? Boo, and also hurrah no budgeting required.

Yeah, I would've thought the xD series would be reserved for APS-H and full-frame (there were even rumours as late as last week than the 7D would be 1.4x crop - supposedly the upper limit of EF-S compatibility) so why this isn't just the 60D, I don't know. It's build like a 5D, mind (even better weather sealing, it seems). Fairly significant cosmetic overhaul and I'm curious to see that viewfinder - not so much the size, which ain't all that (a whole 1.07x bigger than my 40D, wow), but the LCD overlays. £1,045 RRP at the current exchange rate in the US, which makes it better VFM than the last few Canon cameras.

If they price it at that, it'll be a seller, I'd imagine.

I suppose this is their d300, really? The non-sensor bits look great -- especially the new AF -- it's just the sensor that's the worry, especially since it's another pixel cramathon, going by the spec sheet.

In related news: wow, the DPreview forums are plumbing new depths today.

It's so many pixels, the 7D offers an M-raw mode which is exactly the same resolution as my 40D full out! I think I'd be using that a lot, tbh. 20MB files? Nein danke.

I stopped reading DPR today after the pile-on thread where some hapless chap (about 3 days ago) had gone to great lengths to dissect last week's Chinese brochure leak and how the image of the 7D was obviously faked cos the buttons were Nikon-like, the prism bulge was too big, the logo was misplaced, etc. Of course, it turned out to be real, so many LOLZ.

I love DPR forums; I wanted to use them as a counterpoint in that "are internet people becoming more jaded" thread

i don't think dpreview forums pass the turing test tbh. every time canon comes out with a camera, the nikon forums automatically script a dozen threads saying "i'm going to switch", "nikon can't keep up". in the meantime, it just produces a thread entitled "where is the D700x" three times an hour.

don't think dpreview forums pass the turing test tbh

Jessops has the 7D on pre-order, at the special $1=£1 price of £1699. Astounding.

WS the S90 if it shoots RAW. And doesn't suck.

A lot of original 5d bodies popping up on eBay. Wonder if the owners are thinking of 7ds.

Why would you give up a full-frame sensor for a crop? Unless you have no interest in wide-angle work. I know the 7D has all the bells and whistles and is seemingly pretty clean at 6400, etc but I just think of all those poor bloody pixels, packed in like sardines. They can't be happy.

It's strange. I wonder if they had been holding out for the Mk II to drop and now, since it hasn't, the ones who either don't care about FF or don't realise about the pixel cramming are moving up to something else. Definite uptick either way.

1D Mk IV announced...

I'm more excited about the two new CV lenses announced in EF mount...the 20mm f3.5 translates into a nice 30mm on a crop body, and the 40mm into a rather weird 64mm

1d seems to have fallen with a bit of a clunk, except on DPReview forums, of course. It's pretty expensive (and virtually $1=£1 here, so even more so) in its own right, but it's also more than the predecessor and more than the Nikon. It also has tiny pixels that they're cooking to really high ISOs, though the sample shots look nice. I wonder why they stuck with that odd APS-H; surely it's time to go full-frame?

As with everything they've done recently, it feels like 1990s Apple, where instead of making the best they could at the price they've dodged and burned to not damage any of the market positioning of the other models. Whereas with Nikon, you feel like they're going all-out on every model -- look how the d700 was virtually equal to the D3.

Still, the new autofocus looks really nice. Won't trickle down of course, because this is Canon. Sigh.

yeah af seems great, although leaving just six of the 45 sensors as non-cross-type seems weirdly penny pinching given how far they went - finish the job! £4500 is ridiculous though. i hadn't checked out the price of the nikon d3s until now and i'm amazed how much more than the d3 it's pitched at for the uk too. i'm sure it's just exchange rate/economic woes, but i'd be surprised if either of these sell much: if I was running a news organisation, new cameras would be the last thing i was thinking of, especially given the excellent performance of the last generation - they're asking a lot for incremental improvements at the moment.

5D is clinging firmly to its £700-£900 price point second hand, too. That feels like money they're leaving on the table for a basic FF body.

I'm still not sure who is supposed to buy the 7D. It's £1600, and the 5D II is £1800, so why would you take the 7D? There's more of a decision in the US, where there's a $1000 difference, but here it's so strange I wonder if these companies UK importers/offshoots have no say in pricing. If the manufacturers just set the prices at whatever the exchange rate happens to be on launch day as they seem to be doing, they end up with a range that makes not a lick of sense.

Hmm, I had my money on pixel-binning for the ultra-high ISOs but they just appear to be extensions of the normal range at full resolution. That ISO 3200 butterfly pic on the Canon site has similar grain to what I see at about ISO 1000 on my 40D.

Our second EOS 1000D has died; same fail as the first. Still not quite a year since we bought it.

Hmmm.

What is the nature of the fault? Either you're very unlucky or the 1000D has real QC/build issues.

It wont turn on properly; no response at all on the LCD screen, while the viewfinder powers up but flashes a "busy" message which never goes away and doesn't register any ISO changes etc unless you turn it off and on again.

What version of firmware are you on? What you're experiencing sounds very much like the issue v1.0.6 is designed to solve.

No idea what the firmware version is, and don't know how to check without the LCD screen! That does sound like our issue though, but because there's only one screen on the 1000D (and it's banjaxed) I doubt I'm going to be able to update it.

You should be able to do most of it via EOS Utility on a computer connected to the 1000D by USB; you may be able to do the last couple of steps blind (just SET, right, OK). But, yeah, tricky. Back to Canon, I s'pose...

Do you reckon it's worth a try?

I'd do a search of the forums to see if others with a dead LCD have done this; I'd be slightly nervous about that last step. Be great if that fixed it though.

I'm still not sure who is supposed to buy the 7D. It's £1600, and the 5D II is £1800, so why would you take the 7D?

The 7D only on display in Jessops in kit form, with the new 15-135 lens - £1799. 5DII body right next to it for only £50 more (and available for less than that up the road at Camera World)!

If that is the case I'd say go 5D unless you have a lot invested in the digi-lenses. The low light imaging is still better than the 7D -- YMMV but this was my exp. last week while playing w/ them both.

I can't see any argument to be made for the 7D at these prices at all, really. Unless you'd bought all crop lenses, but that'd be quite the stance.

Someone in the pub yesterday was wielding a 7D (with a 50/1.4 on it). There were a few knowing glances from him and his chums when I got my 40D out but we never actually made geek-contact. I wonder if he bought it before or after the recent £400+ price drop? Now basically the same price as the Nikon D300s.

I am having joy.

"We have just received our EOS 1000d back for the second time in under 12 months following repair; both times has been the same fault - the LCD screen has stopped working, the viewfinder is powering up but not responding, and the shutter will not release. This fault initially occurred after approx 6 months and 20,000 exposures.

After the first repair, when the camera was away for SEVEN WEEKS, we were sent a replacement model with a different serial number. Approx 6 weeks after we got this model, and 2,000 exposures, we suffered the exact same fault.

We have just received this camera back today, after 4 1/2 weeks away, during which time the camera went out of warranty, and it has a NEW fault; the camera body will not interact with either of our Canon lenses (a 50mm f/1.8 EF and a stock 18-55mm EFS), no autofocus, no aperture control, and when you release the shutter an "Err 01" message about communication between the camera and lens comes up. The lens contacts do not need appear to need cleaning.

I am furious about this, as I hope you can imagine. My camera is now out of warranty, and appears never to have been fit for purpose in the first place."

Who is that?

Me.

Oh, shit. The warranty shouldn't matter if there's this history of trouble; statutory rights'll cover you

:( hope you get this fixed

My plan:

i'll go in tomorrow
take the camera and kit lens in the box
ask to speak to the manager
name check the uk sale of goods act and their 6 year responsibility
use the phrases inherant fault and fit for purpose
and get a refund

And then buy a 450d body only.

D'you think it might've been this firmware thing?

Also: what's the price diff btw 450D and 500D thesedays? £60 or so? I'd be tempted by video (all auto though, I think, unlike the updated 5D2 and 7D) and hi-res LCD on the newer model.

Though, after your experiences, I might be more tempted to Stuff Canon and buy a Nikon.

The firmware's on the latest version.

500d might be an idea, actually...

I like Canon, is the issue, and I really found the 1000d lovely to use, and, thought it's only cheap, I love the 50mm lens, and buying a Nikon equivalent would be more expense.

450d to 500d is about £100.

Fair enough - you don't want to have buy lenses all over again (Nikkor 50/1.8 not autofocus on the cheaper Nikon bodies anyway - Mike's Stock DSLR Factoid, to be inserted into every discussion on this board; Sony do a cheap 50/1.8 now, I see).

I now have a brand new 4560d, no fuss; explained the situation and my consumer rights very calmly and clearly, paid the difference, new, better camera.

Hooray!

SM if your new 450D fails you can always fall back to this:

Attaching SLR lenses to an iPhone

I want a G11.

G11, or a lens for the 450d? If a lens, which lens?

what can a g11 do that your 450 can't?

(Glib answer: fit in his pocket?)

yeah, but the g11 is pretty big and heavy for a digicam. s90 is more interesting to me

otm

Oh yes, I'd definitely go for the S90 for a pocket compact.

Basically I'm thinking of the wedding; I've got a mate who's going to take photographs with the 450d, but I'd like something that I can have with me on the day too. Also, I'd quite like a second camera so that Em can feel she has more ownership of the 450d.

I had a fiddle with a G11 last night and liked the size and weight of it. I've got an SX120 IS at work and it feels really flimsy to me now. Other advantages of the G11, for me, over the S90, are the viewfinder (even if it's crap compared to a proper DSLR one), and the tilt&swivel LCD screen, which I think I'd really want on a compact now. But then there's the bigger aperture of the S90, and the pocketability... mind you, if I'm indoors and want to take really low-light pictures I can just get the 450d and the nifty fifty out.

I JUST DON'T KNOW.

you could probably get a second body (used) and lens for the price of a new g11. ;)

If you're set on a compact then really have a play with the S90 - those two control rings are very clever and make it almost as customisable (and hence quick to use) as an DSLR.

If it's just for the day, hire a 5Dii/24-70L or 85L and swap with yr 450D-totin' mate after the ceremony!

Now we're going to NYC in May I think I'll pick up something there given that $ = £ when it comes to cameras.

stop by b&h!

What's b&h?

A device for taking away all yr money and credit cards. It's like Hamleys for smudgers

www.bhphotovideo.com

they have weird hours if you're visiting on the weekend (due to observing shabbat). adorama is their clone but they also have weird hours on the weekend.

We get in late Thursday and leave late Monday, so could go there Friday. Had been thinking about getting an Amazon order sent to a friend's place in NYC, but this looks like WAY more fun. Are their stock levels good? I expect they'll have a G11 in but I'll want a 24mm prime lens too.

Canon 24/2.8 or Sigma 24/1.8? The latter looks kinda interesting. I'm guessing that you're not going for the 24/1.4L.

You know you can get the Canon 28/1.8 for about the same price as the 24/2.8? Also, the 24/2.8 is a 20-y-o design which predates USM (i.e. it's as noisy focusing as the thrifty fifty or the kit). It even predates Carter USM.

Stock levels are great -- allow lots of time in the camera dept: they have every model out for unlimited playing. Jessops it aint

Jonesy; I am undecided - luckily I have some time to research as we're not going till end of April.

they close at 1 on Fridays; if you get a Sigma lens make sure the warranty is international, as there are many stories of Sigma lenses needing recalibration or whatever to fix back/front focusing

Canon EOS 550D announced. Or Rebel T2i or Kiss X4 or what have you. Seems to have most of the 7D's feature set, squeezing the video-less 50D out of the frame even more. What's the bet that, having had the first-ever sub-£1k DSLR on the market (the 300D/Rebel in 2003), Canon push this 6th-gen successor above that threshold again (at least as an initial kit RRP)?

I do wish my 40D had that proximity sensor which turns off the LCD when you bring the camera up to yr eye. Wonder why they skimped on that?

More thoughts on fixed focal length wide angle lenses for a 450d, please. I have inbuilt trepidation of third-party lenses, don't know why; am I being silly? 24, 28, or 35mm? 2.8 or 2.0? What's best value?

35/2.0 is very good value but is a late-'80s design, slow and noisy AF, poor sharpness in the corners. A friend uses it on his 1000D with good results but it's barely wide-angle (he bought it as a "normal" lens on a crop body).

I've always been happy with my 28/1.8 (super-fast, focuses like a dream even in the near-dark, sharp enough, has a few issues with chromatic aberration but nothing Lightroom can't fix). Some web resources seem to suggest that the cheaper, older 28/2.8 is a little better beyond f/4.0, so if you're getting this lens for landscape/architectural shots, perhaps the 2.8 is better. In low-light, 2.8 might be enough.

24/2.8 I've no experience of - it's another pre-USM relic from Canon's very first range of EOS primes but seems to be decent enough.

You may be right to be wary of third-party lenses, especially as the only company out there who still makes primes for Canon bodies is Sigma, and they reverse-engineer the Canon electronics. With each iteration of Canon bodies, another generation of Sigma EF lenses is rendered semi-obsolete (my mid-'90s Sigma 70-210 works fine on my 1990/98 film SLRs, but only wide-open on my 2003/07 DSLRs). When I was looking for a similar thing 2-3 years ago, the most obvious rival to the 28/1.8 was Sigma's 30/1.4; they seem to work fine on Nikon bodies (and autofocus on AF-S-only cameras, unlike older Nikkor lenses) but Canon users seem to end up sending them back to be tweaked.

For a while I was very interested in getting a manual focus wide prime (Zeiss Flektogon 24/2.4, for example) - cheap EOS-M42 adaptor and you're away. Might be worth looking on eBay. (Again, kinda useless for quick, indoor snaps).

Landscape/architecture is what I'm thinking of, aye.

wouldn't you be better with the 10-22 zoom then? 24mm isn't really w--i--d--e on a crop sensor, whereas 10mm gives a really dramatic perspective. big disadvantage w/ the zoom is losing the fast aperture but it sounds like it's not that important for what you're planning to do.

How much is that? Finance is, as ever, the other consideration.

yeah, sorry it's about £600 - the third party zooms in the same sort of range are pretty good though. i had a tokina 12-24 which served me v well (on a nikon) and i've heard good things about the sigma 10-22. but if you're really on a budget, the 2.8 primes are probably it as far as wide angles go.

There is one third-party AF wide prime out there that you might still be able to find: Tokina 17mm f/3.5. Supposedly very good, no problems on a Canon body. It was discontinued about two years ago but you still see them around (particularly in Sigma/Tokina specialists). Maybe £200?

That 10-22mm is great fun but very expensive. I got to play with one once on the top of multi-storey carpark in Peckham:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2497/3708757933_48cd14051b.jpg

You've still got the kit lens, haven't you? That's really not bad at the wide end at f/5.6-f/8.0. Fairly hopeless indoors or at the portrait end, as you know.

Just sayin', like.

Hmmm, kit lens probably deserves more experimentation.

The 28mm is pretty wide on full frame (this was taken with my EOS 10 film camera):
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3246/2515686825_3f114b4d87.jpg

That's probably a little wider than you'd get at 18mm on a crop sensor. 28mm is more like a normal lens (~45mm) on a crop sensor, obv.

OK so s1ocki has already convinced me I think, but anyone else want to weigh in and tell me why I shouldn't get a t2i/550d? This is mainly for video but stills would be nice too of course.

Can't really spring for like a 5D. I know there will be jello/rolling shutter but would probably use a slightly wider lens to try to correct this. Also - what lens would be a good starter if I can really only buy one and am on something of a budget (all relative when you're talking about what is still to me a fucking expensive camera)? Was looking at this:http://www.amazon.com/Canon-15-85mm-3-5-5-6-Digital-Cameras/dp/B002NEGTTM/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285445673&sr=8-1

I mainly shoot film and have my own camera, so I don't need/can't afford the most badass-est DSLR at this point in time. I see this more as a short-term purchase that isn't perfect but will NOT drive me nuts. I mostly shoot locked-down anyway, but figure I will need like some focus-pull gear and other extras? Is B&H still the cheapest for this stuff?

Thanks, guys.

Also - I have some old 35 still lenses that used to be my dad's. They're not Canon, in fact they're all kinds of wacky brands I've never heard of. Any chance I could find adapters for these??

have no idea about the ins and outs of shooting video - but as to yer second question adapters definitely exist, you just gotta find out what mount those lenses are made in. tons of companies were producing lenses for all of the major mounts (om, fd, nikno, etc.).

adapters should be pretty cheap on eBay, if you can't find anything let me know and I could probably find it here in hong kong and mail it to you.

That would be awes. I looked and these lenses are like Tamron (?), Vivitar (????) and Pentax. probably whatever was cheap in the 70s

OK so I googled and looks like Vivitar could be decent but who knows. I am a movie guy so I don't know too much about still lenses.

tamron is still around and making lenses that get mixed reviews, vivitar is still around but hasn't been relevant in forever. those pentax lenses are probably p. awesome and even if those tamron/vivitar lenses aren't great, hey, fix it in post.

haha

The original camera was Pentax so it's probably just the equivalent of a standard kit lens. Would be interested to try. I may not know still lenses but I'm as fussy as I can afford to be when it comes to optics. Forget post, I believe in getting the best possible image into the camera before messing w/it.

do you know if it's a zoom or a prime lens? if it's a prime lens I bet it would hold its own against the canon lens you linked to in the equivalent focal length of its zoom range.

generally the things to watch out for when using film lens on digital sensors are:

-decreased contrast
-decreased sharpness

usually wide angle slr film lens are not great on digital sensors, due to 1. the inherent flaws of retrofocus lens design needed to get wide angle lenses on an slr and 2. the fact that for digital sensors, the light rays need to be perpendicular to the digital sensor for best quality, whereas most wide angle film lenses are designed to send them at oblique angles.

at the same time, film lenses can give an 'old school' look to your shots.

the best way is to just try it and see if you like it, obv.

btw, iirc zeiss offers some of their lenses in EF mount. probably insanely expensive tho

THANKS!

I will look into all that

*btw when I say zeiss offers their lenses, I mean their cine lenses. like here

http://www.zeiss.com/compactprime

Adapting to EOS is somewhat difficult - you're probably going to lose metering and aperture control to some degree (if not totally).

All of the big makers have 720p or 1080p video on their main camera line now so you don't have to look only at Canon.

Any good alternatives?

The new Pentax K-R has 720p and I suspect could use all of your dad's lenses. If he has a Pentax lens, he was probably buying the other lenses in Pentax's K-mount.

you could also try micro four thirds - olympus and panasonic have put out some nice cameras. check out the panasonic GH1, which was designed with video in mind. a little pricey, but its huge kit zoom lens has silent AF, built in stereo mic, mic input...some other doodads that make it suited for video.

and since the GH2 is coming out, GH1 prices are probably changing.

review of the GH1 from a video shooting perspective:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/gh1.shtml

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/GH1-hack.shtml

also, the GH1 (and all m4/3 cameras) can take pretty much any lens ever made and meter them as well (aperture control may not be available on those lenses that depend on the body to control it).

How is that they can take so many lenses? Some kind of universal mount or just a lot of adapters?

Thanks for the help guys, this is really useful. Looking into that Pentax too

lot of adapters + flange mount distance is really short, so it's just a matter of machining the adapter to match the flange distance of whatever mount you're using

I think the new Sony NEX's are also very adaptable but they're a pain to use (supposedly)

Man...GH1 is looking really good but the camera plus lenses (at the current price puts it out of my price range).

Pentax K-7 is the right price but I have yet to found anything positive about the video - nothing too bad, but nothing overwhelmingly positive. One write-up seemed to suggest it is a bit noisy. Looked at my dad's lenses and the Vivitar is a 70mm-210mm 1:3.5 Not much cop. The Pentax lens is a 50mm 1:1.7 and looks pretty dece, Tamron is a 35-70mm 1:3.5 that actually looks really nice. And the idea of maybe just buying one other lens (maybe this: http://www.amazon.com/Sigma-Pentax-Samsung-Digital-Cameras/dp/B000FG6CME) plus the body is pretty tempting. Just want to read more about the video.

Then there's the T2i which isn't the GH1 but seems like it would be good for video. Around the same price as the Pentax but would need more lenses.

This is like an impossible decision. Seems like the smart thing would be to wait and see if the GH1 comes down, but I'd really like to get something in the next month for a trip.

As for mic inputs - I pretty much always record dual system, so recording sound into the camera isn't a big sell for me.

It's just hard to get through all the marketing speak to read what these cameras actually do.

if that's the case sounds like the T2i would be sufficient for you. GH1 (body only) prices are pretty cheap if you're willing to hang out on camera forums and buy secondhand - they go from $5-600 and might drop now that the GH2 has been announced.

if those are zoom lenses from the 70s, I'd be careful - zooms never really got good until the 90s. that pentax sounds like a gem though.

if you dig around on vimeo or w/e you can probably find tons of stuff created with any of the camera bodies you're interested in. don't know of any camera websites that focus exclusively/are experts on video capability though

Thanks, dayo. Yeah they're from the 70s or early 80s. I also FINALLY figured out that the Pentax cameras don't have manual ISO or shutter...so they're out for me. Now...pretty sure that T2i does that. I'll check into a secondhand GH1 though.

tbh, I'd not worry about those lenses at all. You can get a brand new Canon equivalent to that 50 for ~$80 (the EF 50mm f/1.8) and the two zooms are likely to be v. v. bad.

I don't know what focal lengths you're used to shooting (or are regularly used for film/cinema) but remember that a 50mm SLR lens becomes a short portrait lens (80mm equivalent on a Canon body) with a T2i or EOS 7D.

for your consideration, admrl

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/a-powerful-panasonic-with-optional-3-d/

So I have a Powershot A75 from four-five years ago. I am not a photographer, it's just for like baby pics etc. but I find it really aggravating. When I try to take pictures indoors, there are two options: use the flash and have everything in focus be really washed out and everything in the background be black, or turn off the flash and have everything be blurry. Are there known flash problems with these cameras? Do I have to learn how to manually adjust the settings and stop using the auto setting?

Get it on manual, it's the only way. You may even be able to adjust the flash a little in setting too?

indoor shots are difficult even for pro-level cameras. might be time for an upgrade - check out the new s95, or pick up a used s90 for a bit cheaper

in the meantime, try slow-sync flash. uses a long exposure then flashes at the end, looks a lot warmer than regular flash + you get trippy light trails.