Helpful hints

Here are a collection of helpful hints. They are mainly things which I've found by experimenting with things I own, and I couldn't find somewhere on the web.
Please take this as advice from someone you don't know, my liability stops at the price I charge you for this information (ie. nothing!).

I've been an avid photographer since I left school, shooting around 1000 pictures a year to film!
I work in technology, and I bought my first digital camera (a Casio QV-10) back in 1997. I've upgraded about every 18months since then !
My main digital cameras at the moment are a Canon EOS 10D, and a Konica Minolta X50, the Canon makes a great top end camera, and the Minolta is a great little point and shoot... See also my Digital camera links

Canon EOS 10D

I opted for the Canon EOS system over the alternatives because the system has been around for years so there are loads of second hand lenses available at very reasonable prices. My current kit bag contains:-

EF 17-40mm F1:4.0 USM L with an EW-83J lens hood!
EF 24-85mm F1:3.5-4.5 USM - With full time manual override

EF 24-105 F4 L USM

EF 70-200mm F1:2.8 USM L - One of the best lenses ever made by Canon
Speedlite 430-EX
Jessops flash extension cable.
Vivitar MC 1.4x teleconvertor
Set of Kenko Extension tubes (with electronic pass through)
A pair of 4G Dane-Elec CF cards

Note: With 4G cards on the 10D, it's important to format them on a PC with a 32K cluster size. You can do this from the command line on Windows XP using the format command, and the /A:32K option. This results in about a 40% speed improvement over using the camera's built in format command.

Other Canon kit I've owned

Canon's EOS 300D
18-55mm F3.5-5.6 - a basic quality lens
EF 35-105mm F1:3.5-4.5 - Push-pull design, excellent optical quality
EF 70-210mm 1:4 - Push-pull, excellent optical quality, but sluggish focussing
EF 70-210mm F1:3.5-4.5 USM - Newer design, with superfast full time manual USM

10D vs 300D (also vs 20D and 30D)

I initially upgraded the firmware of the 300D to make it similar to the 10D, on looking at the price difference on eBay, I decided to go the full hog, and upgrade the camera. I looked at the 20D and 30D, and although they offer a few more pixels (8.2M vs 6.3M) it's only about 14% increase in X and Y, so doesn't actually make that much of a difference. In RAW mode the buffer is much smaller (6frames I think), and this was the deciding factor to go for a 10D.
The advantages I've noticed of the 10D over the 300D:-

Bigger RAW buffer, 9 pictures buffered instead of 4.
Easier to select predictive autofocus (in all modes).
Bigger and brighter viewfinder.
Second curtain sync.
Slight faster "motordrive" mode, 3fps instead of 2.5fps.
Rear wheel control, allows for easier manual mode adjustments.
Easier to select low-res JPG embedded in the RAWs.

Of course when they release a 40D with a 10.1M pixel sensor, and at least a 9 frame RAW buffer, then I'll be saving the pennies again!

Canon IR info

The 300D and some of the other consumer level cameras, can use the RC-1 and RC-5 remote controls. The IR codes can be coded into a Pronto or something similar:-

now	0000	007d	0001	0001	000f	00f2	000f	0cdb
delayed	0000	007f	0001	0001	000f	00b0	000f	0cbe

Konica Minolta X50

Konica's X50 page
Fantastic little camera with 5.0MP with 2.8x optical zoom

To show thumbnailed photos in review mode
- press the display button twice (once changes the info, second displays thumbnails)
Can't see what's in frame in low light conditions when using the LCD monitor
- Half press the shutter, after a few seconds it goes into low-light mode

Fuji F10

The Konica popped in to the repair shop, and I though it was going to be beyond econmical repair, so while it was out I got the Fuji F10. It's low light capability is about the best on the market, and it's got a few more pixels than the Konica, but 9 times out of 10 the Konica takes better pictures. The Fuji is a better camera, it has a better sensor, better lens, better screen, and it's faster, but... In point and shoot mode, the Konica X50 "Just Works" better.

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This page was lasted updated on Saturday, 07-Nov-2009 06:58:37 GMT