Good Camera Shop?

[ishoot308]

Thanks to my wonderful wife's early Christmas present, I upgraded from my Canon 20-D to a 60-D. I also bought a Canon EF 2x telephoto extender to play with.

Any forum members using a 60-D or have experience with a telephoto extender?? Would love to hear your thoughts / review of either.

Thanks!!

Dan

[Resident 2B]

Dan.

I have the Canon 10D, 20D and 50D and I recently bought the 5D Mark II, I also have and use several of the L series telephoto lens. I have the tele-extender you purchased and it works great as long as you have enough light or you can live with a higher ISO in low light. As you extend the "length" of the lens, you also effectively negatively impact your aperture.

My option is the tele-extender works very well in most cases. You will lose a bit of definition on the outer edges, but that often can be cropped out.

With the 60D you are already getting a 1.6 multiplier on the focal length of your lenses compared to full frame digital or 35mm film, so with the 2x you are getting a big boost on your telephoto lenses at the small cost of definition.

Have fun with it and most importantly shoot some RAW stuff and get into digital darkroom instead of just shooting .jpgs Think of the RAW image as a negative and work with it. Time consuming, but inexpensive fun during the winter.

R2B

[ishoot308]

Originally Posted by Resident 2B

Have fun with it and most importantly shoot some RAW stuff and get into digital darkroom instead of just shooting .jpgs Think of the RAW image as a negative and work with it. Time consuming, but inexpensive fun during the winter.

R2B

Until work slows down for me, which I hope is very very soon, the "digital darkroom" / photoshop will have to wait. Heck I need a simple photography class first! Until then the auto mode feature will have to suffice.

Thanks for the info!

Dan

[SteveA]

Originally Posted by Resident 2B

Have fun with it and most importantly shoot some RAW stuff and get into digital darkroom instead of just shooting .jpgs Think of the RAW image as a negative and work with it. Time consuming, but inexpensive fun during the winter.
R2B

R2B.. what software are you using for RAW. can open RAW in Photoshop Elements, but the app in Elements has me completely baffled. Some suggested Lightroom???

[Resident 2B]

I use Photoshop CS3, but I intend to upgrade to CS6 by the end-of-the-year deadline for free or reduced pricing. However, usually the raw image processor that came with the camera's software CD does the job. I also understand you can use the raw processor in Photoshop Elements, but I never did that.

This is something you need to play with and realize that if you make a mistake, you just undo it or start again with the original raw image. This is not for 'snapshots', but for 'artsy' stuff like old barns, fences, mushrooms and things like that. I use it for photos I enter in competition, but I do not win very often, so there are many better users out there.

R2B

[Merrymeeting]

Originally Posted by SteveA

R2B.. what software are you using for RAW. can open RAW in Photoshop Elements, but the app in Elements has me completely baffled. Some suggested Lightroom???

Steve, I used to use Elements, now use Lightroom and Photoshop (but honestly only switched because have access via work. If I was paying myself, Elements would be fine).

As far as I know, the RAW processor is the same for all (Currently Camera Raw 7.2) It comes up when you open an image for editing. You can do some processing in Camera Raw, or some in PsE, and there is a lot of overlap in functionality. When I first started, I would skip through Camera Raw and only use PsE.

Without getting into too much detail here, as R2B implies, Camera Raw works from the RAW image but does not alter your original. PsE works on a processed JPG image, one created by Camera Raw, which is why it starts with the Camera Raw process.

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by ishoot308

Thanks to my wonderful wife's early Christmas present, I upgraded from my Canon 20-D to a 60-D. I also bought a Canon EF 2x telephoto extender to play with.

Any forum members using a 60-D or have experience with a telephoto extender?? Would love to hear your thoughts / review of either.

Thanks!!

Dan

My opinion of the extender (any extender) is kind of "meh".

The extender is going to impact the minimum aperture opening of the lens (since f/stop is a factor of focal length to aperture diameter, the extender can effect focal length, but it CAN'T change the aperture blades). So, it's really only useful for outdoor shots with really good lighting.

I have the 2 extender, I played with it for a bit, but don't think I've ever actually *used* it.

Not sure what lenses you have, but if you want to borrow my 100-400mm Canon L lens, I can drop it off one day. It's a good lens to couple to the 2x extender.

[ishoot308]

Originally Posted by brk-lnt

My opinion of the extender (any extender) is kind of "meh".

The extender is going to impact the minimum aperture opening of the lens (since f/stop is a factor of focal length to aperture diameter, the extender can effect focal length, but it CAN'T change the aperture blades). So, it's really only useful for outdoor shots with really good lighting.

I have the 2 extender, I played with it for a bit, but don't think I've ever actually *used* it.

Not sure what lenses you have, but if you want to borrow my 100-400mm Canon L lens, I can drop it off one day. It's a good lens to couple to the 2x extender.

Thanks for the offer but that lens is on my radar screen and hopefully I will have one before the end of the year. My main telephoto is a 70-300 mm I.S. lens that has been working well for me. I can only imagine the beautiful shots you can get with the L series lens!

Dan

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by ishoot308

Thanks for the offer but that lens is on my radar screen and hopefully I will have one before the end of the year. My main telephoto is a 70-300 mm I.S. lens that has been working well for me. I can only imagine the beautiful shots you can get with the L series lens!

Dan

It's a nice lens, but heavy. I'd recommend a tripod or monopod with it unless you're a REALLY good hand-holder or use a body brace. It would be a pretty big step up from the 70-300 lens you have now (is that the one with the green-ring on it?).

My go-to lens for 90% of the time is the 24-105L. I think that everyone who shoots Canon relies on that lens I also had the 24-70L but sold it due to lack of use.

My main kit is:
16-35L
24-105L
100-400L

The 70-200L/IS lens is also a great outdoor lens. I had the 70-200L non-IS, but sold it, have not replaced it yet because I haven't had time for serious photography in a while.

I also need to upgrade my 5D to the MkIII...

[Resident 2B]

Originally Posted by brk-lnt

It's a nice lens, but heavy. I'd recommend a tripod or monopod with it unless you're a REALLY good hand-holder or use a body brace. It would be a pretty big step up from the 70-300 lens you have now (is that the one with the green-ring on it?).

My go-to lens for 90% of the time is the 24-105L. I think that everyone who shoots Canon relies on that lens I also had the 24-70L but sold it due to lack of use.

My main kit is:
16-35L
24-105L
100-400L

The 70-200L/IS lens is also a great outdoor lens. I had the 70-200L non-IS, but sold it, have not replaced it yet because I haven't had time for serious photography in a while.

I also need to upgrade my 5D to the MkIII...

No doubt in my mind the Canon L series lenses are the best way to go. I would buy a good L series used lens before I would buy a regular Canon lens. The glass is so important.

I bought my 5D MKII on the price drop before the 5D MKIII was released. Great camera body, but the MKIII is the way to go fir the 'artsy' stuff. I like the 60D for nature and sports photography as you get good detail but a bump in focal length. Loons and eagles on and around the lake is an environment where the 60D is great.

With the L series longer lens, you need support. They are heavy and the support should be under the lens, not on the camera body. The carbon graphite mono-pods work great.

R2B

[SteveA]

Originally Posted by Resident 2B

No doubt in my mind the Canon L series lenses are the best way to go. I would buy a good L series used lens before I would buy a regular Canon lens. The glass is so important.

I bought my 5D MKII on the price drop before the 5D MKIII was released. Great camera body, but the MKIII is the way to go fir the 'artsy' stuff. I like the 60D for nature and sports photography as you get good detail but a bump in focal length. Loons and eagles on and around the lake is an environment where the 60D is great.

With the L series longer lens, you need support. They are heavy and the support should be under the lens, not on the camera body. The carbon graphite mono-pods work great.

R2B

I look all the time for used L's.. hard to find.

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by SteveA

I look all the time for used L's.. hard to find.

Really? I see them fairly regularly on the NH and MA craigslist listings.

You can also save a couple of dollars (maybe $50 on a $1100 lens) buying the non-US lenses. Same lens/glass, just not marked for US warranty.

[SteveA]

Originally Posted by brk-lnt

Really? I see them fairly regularly on the NH and MA craigslist listings.

You can also save a couple of dollars (maybe $50 on a $1100 lens) buying the non-US lenses. Same lens/glass, just not marked for US warranty.

LOL.. I just checked Craigs list.. you right. Guess my "looking for" skills need a little sharpening.

My lens are all EF - besides the kit I've added
EF70-300 f4-5.6 and the EF 50 F/1.4 USM

My body is the T3 will L Series even work with that body?

[ishoot308]

Steve;

According to Canon, your T3 will work with all Canon EF (electro focus) lens. An L (luxury ) series lens is an EF lens and has that designation in the description. You should be good to go!

You would be wise to double check my info before buying however as I am still very much in the learning mode!

Dan

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by SteveA

LOL.. I just checked Craigs list.. you right. Guess my "looking for" skills need a little sharpening.

My lens are all EF - besides the kit I've added
EF70-300 f4-5.6 and the EF 50 F/1.4 USM

My body is the T3 will L Series even work with that body?

Yes, the EF bayonet mount is standard across all modern Canon bodies, film or digital.

FYI, the thing that essentially makes a lens an "L" designation is the quality of the internal optics, not the mount or interface. Canon used to have a prior mounting system in the 70's or 80's, I forget the designation, it like F or something. Anyways, you could have conceptually had F-L lenses and EF-L lenses, they would not be cross compatible, but being designated as "L" in either series would indicate the higher-end lens.

There are many factors that make up a good quality lens. Would you *should* generally notice from better lenses would be:
-Constant aperture across the focal length, and usually a low number (f/4 or better). Aperture is a function of focal length, not an absolute aperture opening size, for a given aperture opening (say like an 8mm diameter), that would be f/4 at 100mm, but f/5.6 at 200mm (note, I'm totally making these numbers up because I don't feel like looking up for doing the math So, the ability to maintain f/4 over a 100-400mm range for example takes more engineering complexity inside the lens to both have an opening that wide, and scale it with the lens zoom.

-Better sharpness at the edges of the lens. It's relatively easy to make the center of the lens elements crisp, but maintaining the same sharpness uniformly throughout the entire field of view takes more precision and time in the lens glas grinding process. The result of course is that your images appear sharp throughout, and with less visible aberrations at the edges.

-Less chromatic distortions at the edges. Lenses shape and funnel light, we've all seen the Pink Floyd logo of the light beam going through the color splitter, a similar effect happens with camera lenses. Better quality glass, coatings, polishing and groupings reduce this effect so that you don't have color distortions near the edges of the lens.

An interesting side effect of cameras that use APS-C sized sensors (pretty much any Canon that is not a 1 or 5 series, and all but 1 or 2 Nikons), is that the sensor is smaller than a standard 35mm sized sensor, so it's not "seeing" the light coming from the edges of the lens, it's using more of the center of the glass, which tends to be the best area in terms of overall sharpness/etc.

This is also why you hear about a "1.6x" zoom on these camera bodies. If you mount a 50mm lens on your 40D (or whatever camera body), your sensor is seeing less area than that same lens on my 5D body, because the 5D has a larger sensor. This has the apparent effect of a "zoom", because if we both print out the images we take with a 50mm lens on an 8x10" print for example, your print would show an image of approximately the inner 2/3'ds of what my camera would show, or in a manner of speaking, your print at 50mm would look like an image I took with an 80mm lens. None of this part really matters, I just mention it because it seems to be confusing to a lot of people...

Hope that's helpful

[PaugusBayFireFighter]

I have a friend that asked me to sell some items on eBay for him. I am a very experienced eBay seller but some items are harder to sell because buyers like to touch or test drive older, classic items. In these cases I will attempt to sell to a local by putting an ad on craigslist and actually meeting the person, but in this case I'm selling something I know nothing about, other than it's a great old camera. Wondering if someone knows a local collector or buyer/seller that would be interested in this camera. It's a Nikon F2AS Black Paint with every bell and whistle including batteries, all original manuals, tripod, accessories, etc. My friend treats his possessions like children so I can say, without doubt, it's as close to mint as a camera this age can be.
Thanks in advance for any advice. He's not looking to break the bank, but I don't want him to get beat up like he would at a pawn shop. A reputable camera person would inspect this package and agree it's worthy of a fair deal.

[Resident 2B]

Originally Posted by SteveA

I look all the time for used L's.. hard to find.

Try this place.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search...646+4291570227

Good selection of higher end used photo gear. It will get to the lakes region in a few days.


R2B

[ishoot308]

Originally Posted by brk-lnt

It's a nice lens, but heavy. I'd recommend a tripod or monopod with it unless you're a REALLY good hand-holder or use a body brace. It would be a pretty big step up from the 70-300 lens you have now (is that the one with the green-ring on it?).

My go-to lens for 90% of the time is the 24-105L. I think that everyone who shoots Canon relies on that lens I also had the 24-70L but sold it due to lack of use.

My main kit is:
16-35L
24-105L
100-400L

The 70-200L/IS lens is also a great outdoor lens. I had the 70-200L non-IS, but sold it, have not replaced it yet because I haven't had time for serious photography in a while.

I also need to upgrade my 5D to the MkIII...

Brk;

No green ring on my lens. This is it here...

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-EF-70-30...rds=CANON+LENS

I also have these...

EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens (This one is amazing for close up detail)

EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 wide angle USM lens

EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 USM lens

Dan

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by ishoot308

Brk;

No green ring on my lens. This is it here...

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-EF-70-30...rds=CANON+LENS

I also have these...

EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens (This one is amazing for close up detail)

EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 wide angle USM lens

EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 USM lens

Dan

That 10-22mm lens is pretty well regarded.

The 18-55 is the standard giveaway "kit" lens, honestly not my favorite.

Not too familiar with the 60mm, but not surprised that it's been impressive. A good prime (fixed focal length) lens usually has the benefit of being fast (low aperture) and very sharp.

I would caution you to not get too over-invested in EF-S lenses if you think you are going to continue with photography as a hobby, as they won't fit a full-frame body (which for many people is something they generally intend to get to as budget allows).

EF-S lenses are intended for the APS-C sized sensors, and they have an extra small protrusion at the back of the lens bayonet that prevents them from mating with 1D or 5D bodies (or whatever other full-frame sensor bodies Canon may release in the future). The upside is that because the APS-C sensors are smaller, the EF-S lenses can be a little smaller and therefore a little lighter (and cheaper).

At the end of the day, all this gear holds its resale value pretty well. I'd personally recommend that you splurge a little for the 24-105L lens next. It will last you a lifetime, has great build quality, very good sharpness across the majority of its range, and would probably be left on your camera body 90% of the time. Your current kit, IMO is weighted towards wide angle to medium FOV (the 18-55) and low telephoto to medium zoom (the 70-300). For "walking around" shots you'd probably have to do more lens-swapping than ideal (wasting time, increasing opportunities for dust intrusion into the camera body).

The 60D has a really good sensor and processor, a shot taken at 105mm could be reasonably blown up for a small sized print (8x10 or less) without sacrificing too much noticeable grain in the image. But, you can't widen a shot after taking it. That makes the 24-105 cover the majority of an ideal working range (IMO). I'd keep the 10-22mm close at hand in a camera bag (it's small anyway) for the rare case where you need a really close/wide shot, since your 60D sensor is going to add an effective 1.6x magnification to any lens- due to the sensor crop.

[ishoot308]

Originally Posted by brk-lnt

I'd personally recommend that you splurge a little for the 24-105L lens next. It will last you a lifetime, has great build quality, very good sharpness across the majority of its range, and would probably be left on your camera body 90% of the time.

O.K. Brk, took your recommendation and ordered one... OUCH!

I'll let you know how it works out.

Dan

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by ishoot308

O.K. Brk, took your recommendation and ordered one... OUCH!

I'll let you know how it works out.

Dan

Wait until you amass a good collection of shots and you start asking about real printers Though in that regard, prices have come down a lot in the last few years. You can now get a good printer for $800, that used to be $1400...