Canon 20D - Need advise prior to purchase [Archive]

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vipermann1

03-07-05, 08:50 PM

KristaP

03-07-05, 10:24 PM

Vipermann1 - I'm not a professional photographer but I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night. Actually, I have the Canon 300D and have messed around with it quite a bit. Hopefully, I can provide some helpful tips & information.

Memory: At the highest resolution, figure your pictures will be about 5mb in size. The speed of the storage unit is, imho, most important when you are trying to take a lot of pictures very quickly. Your 20D will hold a few pictures in buffer while it's writing to memory. However, you'll have to wait until all of those pictures are written before shooting more pictures. If you're trying to pull in a bunch of 5fps sequences - you want the fastest memory you can get in order to take advantage of the camera. It'll do 5 fps up to 23 pix - if high speed is important to you & you don't want to wait - then go with the high speed CF cards. Microdrives are a bit slower than solid state cards but, in general, offer a better price for more storage space. Once you have your camera - you should buy 2 cards. You may want to get a microdrive for space & a high speed cf, with less storage, for action or whatever. But definitely get two; you don't want to fill one and cards fail (not often but 'ever' is too often).

Model: Hm. I'll give you some info and then you decide how to approach. The lens which is included in the kit is a general, all around good lens. However, it's kinda cheap feeling (plastic body) and takes pretty good pictures. If I remember correctly, that lens is only offered in Canon's kits. That being said, the 18-55mm (imho) is a great all around lens and I'd suggest you get a better lens than the kit model. The kit with lens, I think, is about $100 extra. Something to consider - it might be a good tool to start learning and you can upgrade it in the future. Pretty common to see them going for $75 or more on ebay now.

Lens: You're looking for the world. The more the lens covers, the less the quality it will do them. Here are some great lens resources to help you decide. This one in particular, I think, is a great place to get a handle on the lens terminology and exactly what each one will do for you. This is one of the most informative sites ever done for consumers, I think. Go here now: http://www.usa.canon.com/html/eflenses/lens101/

Don't forget to check the dpreview forums for good information & discussions.

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-Lens-Reviews.aspx
http://www.fredmiranda.com/
http://www.photo.net/equipment/canon/

This one is a tutorial on shooting motorsports
http://www.iphotoforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5322

Flash: Both the 420EX and 550EX are really good flashes and I can only point you in the direction of further research here: http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/ It's a lot of technical information but towards the end of the page it is nicely summarized.

I hope some of this helps and welcome you to a new, expensive hobby. Let me know if you have any questions - if I don't know the answer, I can probably point you in the direction of the answers.

kristap

BC-GS430

03-08-05, 12:34 AM

Hi all,

I am looking to purchase a new Canon 20D. This will replace my Sony DSC-F707.
I read the reviews and everyone has the best opinion of this camera.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos20d/

A few questions for the photo pros on this site. I am not a professional photographer, but I am now taking pictures for DC Performance (in West Los Angeles) on a regular basis and also family pictures. I want the pictures to be higher quality.
I do intend to get the extended battery for the camera.

Model:
Canon sells only the camera "kit" and one model with the lens? Which one should I buy?

Lens:
I am not sure which lens to buy?

Can anyone recommend a good lens for indoor shooting at auto shows, dinners, and outdoor shows like races and the garage or pit area.

Is there one lens fits all?
There are so many model: Canon 18-55mm AF Lens , Canon 17-85mm IS USM Lens, Quantaray 18-125MM F/3.5-5.6 Digital Series DC AF Zoom , Quantaray 55-200mm F/4-5.6 Digital Series DC AF Zoom Lens.

Memory:
Also, I will buy at least a 1Gb or even 2GB memory card. I know they come in different speeds and also there is a "Microdrive" for the camera. Which should I get? The memory card or microdrive? Ad what speed do you recommend for the drive or memory card?

Flash:
Also there are additional flashed to buy? Which model flash should I buy?? For example Speedlite 420EX, 550EX ,

Also can someone please give me some good advise.
I appreciate it everyone.

E-mail me at : Vipermann1@yahoo.com

The included lense in the bundle is pretty good, although not a genuine canon lense(made by some other company for canon). Good for closeups (18mm) and wide shots as its a wide angle lense.

One lense that fits all, not really. But a good all around lense would be something in the range of 28mm - 80mm or 28mm -135mm such as the Canon EF 28-135 f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens. It will provide a good range for majority of your shots. Generally you want a lense with a fast f-stop so you don't have to use long shutter speeds. You will find canon lenses are a bit expensive, as they have better optics than most brands.

Memory I would recommend flash cards as they are fairly cheap now and much faster than microdrives. I would recommend the 2 gig card.

I have a 550ex flash and love it, I highly recommend it but I believe the 420ex is just as good.

Try www.bestpriceaudiovideo.com or costco for best price.

BuyERTS

03-08-05, 04:09 PM

Adding to what has previously been suggested, when selecting a CF memory card, you'll want to look beyond the capacity and look at the read/write speed.

As an example, Lexar (my brand of choice) makes 4 different 1GB CF cards. They range in read/write speed from 4X to 80X. The faster cards are obviously more expensive (typically).

I've been very impressed with Lexar's "Professional" series. In this line, they make a 512MB, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB card. The 8GB is only 40X speed, but everything else is 80X speed, so it's fast.

bitkahuna

03-08-05, 09:04 PM

> I do intend to get the extended battery for the camera.

If by 'extended battery' you mean the battery grip - in my opinion it's not worth it unless you take a thousand (yes 1,000) pictures or more a day. The Canon battery is good for about 500 shots. I bought a second battery for just $15 (can't remember the web site, but it's a Canon battery clone) and its battery power is higher than Canon's. So with 2 batteries I've no fear of running out of juice.

> Canon sells only the camera "kit" and one model with the lens? Which one should I buy?

Personally I'd skip the kit lens and put the money toward something better. With my 20D I have 2 lenses, the 17-85 IS USM and the 50mm F/1.8. The 17-85 has a very useful range but the pictures are somewhat soft compared to what you'll be used to with a point and shoot, but you can get shots in low light you could never get with a point and shoot plus the sharpness can be improved on the computer. One thing you'll have to get used to with a DSLR is the pictures out of the camera are unlikely to be as sharp under any circumstances as a point and shoot, not because the camera is worse, but because point and shoot camera's do a lot of in camera processing of the image to enhances edges and contrast and sharpness. The 50mm F/1.8 (fixed lens) is a BARGAIN at around $70 giving sharper pictures than the 17-85 generally, but of course I'm fixed at 50mm, so *I* have to move, not the lens. But fixed lenses do provide the best images.

> Lens: I am not sure which lens to buy?

Well, the 17-85 IS like I have would serve you well, and the image stabilization is useful. You might also look at the Canon 24-70 2.8 L lens. I don't know how much you know about lenses and F stops, but the "2.8" number after the lens range (or the 1.8 on the 50mm I have) indicates (inversely) how much light the lens can let in - basically and the lower the number, the more light it can let in. The "L" lenses from Canon are their professional line and generally will give sharper pictures and by letting more light in they can operate in lower light or just let you use shorters (faster) shutter speeds in the same situation as a less expensive lens.

BC-GS430 recommended a 28-135 type of lens which is certainly a wide range, but 2 issues there... the 20D has a sensor about 1.6 times smaller than a 35mm film frame, so 28mm wide angle doesn't 'see' as much as the same lens would on a film camera. Some people confuse this with it being 1.6x closer, but that's not true, it's just cropped. Anyway, the 17-85 lens has a very wide starting range of 17 because it's DESIGNED for the 20D sensor and gives a decent wide angle shot. I'm very happy with its range. I said 2 issues, and the second with a lens like the 28-135 is you'll notice Canon doesn't make an L version of such, because you can't make one of that quality with that breadth of zoom. So the 28-135 range is nice, but your pictures won't be quite as good. Of course in my opinion 99% of picture quality is down to the PHOTOGRAPHER not the camera or lens. :)

> Is there one lens fits all?

No.

> Memory:

Get a 1GB Lexar 80x card for about $100 or less or 2GB if a deal is to be had. The 20D unlike point and shoot cameras can take advantage of a fast card like this so it's money well spent.

The advantage of microdrives isn't there as it once was in my opinion. They're pretty slow for viewing pictures and offloading them.

> Flash:

Can't help there, although it sounds like the 580EX is worth the extra money (lighter, smarter, smaller than predecessors). I'm tempted to get one.