Fall touring pictures

[Ira]

Seriously, it's amazing what a difference this makes. We just never wind up doing it.

And Rob, wanna know how much your pictures inspired me?

I used to be into film photography big-time: Nikon F2s...medium format (2 1/4 by 2 1/4) Mamiya SLR…fancy strobes…all of the expensive stuff.

And along came digital with its no film or processing costs, and I was hooked. Yeah, I took a MAJOR step-down in photo quality, what with the lower resolution/megapixel digital cameras that were coming out at the time, the crappier lenses, etc.

But now the DIGITAL SLR cameras are coming out at prices that won't kill you. And yesterday, I ordered the 8 megapixel Olympus Evolt 500--with two interchangeable zoom lenses--and it arrived in the office this morning.

All because of that stupid car of yours in the woods--and now my wife is going to kill me.

Just joking about the car, and with THIS camera, Woody better get a haircut because he gets to St. Augustine next month.

[48Rob]

Ira,

Sounds like a nice camera!

I have an Olympus E-10.
It is obsolete already, but it does a great job for what I do.

Before I learned the background trick, it was amazing all the overhead power lines, trees growing from peoples heads, and other odd things that showed up in the photos...and I swear they weren't there when I took the picture...

Rob

[asianflava]

But now the DIGITAL SLR cameras are coming out at prices that won't kill you. And yesterday, I ordered the 8 megapixel Olympus Evolt 500--with two interchangeable zoom lenses--and it arrived in the office this morning.

Don't let the wife know about that one or you'll really get in trouble. I guess that is why it "arrived at the office" instead of the house.

After shooting with manual 35mm for years, my wife (then girlfriend) got an Olympus point and shoot for a trip to Europe. I was suprised how well the pictures came out. I started using that because it was easier to carry around.

When I made the jump to Digital, I got another Olympus, a 1.3M point and shoot. It took pretty decent pictures for it's time. I found out later that the older Olympus point and shoots used glass optics whereas their competitors went to plastic.

The 1.3M got demoted when I thought it was dying on me. It turned out to be the memory card and not the camera. I still have it and it works fine but I bought a Canon 7.1M point and shoot to replace it.

For some reason, earlier this year, my wife decided that she wanted a digital SLR. We ended up getting a Canon Rebel XT. I was leaning towards it because I already knew how to drive it, the software is the same as my point and shoot. So now I carry a digital SLR, I kinda made the trip back to the big cameras.

[TRAIL-OF-TEARS]

Yep big cameras are cool.
2.5 years ago I got the wife a Cannon elan 7e and last year I got her a digital rebel, they share the same lenses.

Up until this past summer she still used the film camera more, now that she understads that she doesn't have to print every picture it is saving me a ton of money.

I got the 3 year old this 4.0 mp Kodak c310 for $60.00 bucks at HEB it is way better than the "made for kids" digital we got him, paid $40.00 fot it and it is crap. I have a freebee digital (from earthlink, back in 1999) that is about the same.

[Ira]

What I like about these digital SLRs is that they FEEL like 35mm SLRS.

I started lookng at the manual last night, and man, are these things complicated when you first start.

I couldn't even set the date and time.

[asianflava]

The Rebel XT is a lightweight, it feels ok but when you put a long lens on it the balance is all off. I bought the optional battery grip and hand strap for it. It lowers the CG so it feels much better, and I can take twice as many pictures. The grip holds 2 of the Canon batteries but it also has a cartrage that accepts AA batteries. Being able to just buy some AAs is great when you are in a pinch.

[dmb90260]

Make sure your digital came long lens retracts when it shuts down.

I had a Minolta Dimage Z3 and the lens stays out when it does an automatic shutdown. If I turned it off, the lens retracted.
I was working on my trailer and reached for something that caught on the camera and it flew, landing hard and wrecking it. I picked up another for 50% less on e-bay. This one had the same thing happen when it slipped off the couch, all of 18 inches.

I now have a smaller, cheaper, less satisfactory camera but the lens retracts automatically when not in use.

[Ira]

I gotta tell you, this camera feels EXACTLY like an SLR, and the long zoom is HUGE. And a question, if any of you guys remember this stuff:

The camera came with two zoom lenses--a 14mm to 45mm, and a 40mm to 150mm. (And I still have NO idea what the 35mm equivalents to these focal lengths are.)

So...

Do you guys remember that when you're doing head shots, or even full body shots, nice posed shots, that in the 35mm world, you would always go 80mm and above, and not use the standard 50ish focal? That the results are MUCH more flattering to the subject shooting telephoto and not standard?

Well, with these two lenses, should I go with the high end of the shorter lens, or the low end of the longer one? Like optically, which is better?

Oh, sorry--I thought this was www.popularphotography.com

Maybe I should go there instead.

---------------

Edit: Gee, am I old. That isnt a working link, and Popular Photography magazine must be out of business. Let me check Modern Photography, and if they're kaput too, I'm gonna kill myself for BEING so old.

[s4son]

Ira,
I'm not famliar with the camera you bought but most if not all of the consumer grade digital SLR's use a sensor that is smaller then a frame of 35mm film. The sensor on the Canon Rebel for instance has a multiplication factor of 1.6. So a 50mm lens gives you an effective focal length of 80mm. I usually use a focal length of 80 - 100 for head shots. In your case you would need to use the longer telephoto lens zoomed to around 55-65 to get the desired focal length.

Scott F.

[asianflava]

From what I understand, the image sensor on the Rebel XT is the same size as an APS frame. Smaller than a true 35mm but much larger than a compact digicam.

[Ira]

I knew this thread would bring Scott out of the woodwork!

I'll post more when i get to work, but can you believe this:

Two days, and I still can't figure out how to take picture.

Yeah, it flashes, but it's not showing the image in the LCD, nor are any pictures being stored. Can't even find the PAGE with the info on setting the preferences for this!

[TRAIL-OF-TEARS]

Ira,
do you have a memory card (CF or SD card) in yours or does it have internal memory?

Asian and Scott I don't know what this means to ya'll but I have noticed that what ever I take a picture of with the digital Rebel, the picture is actually larger than what I see throught the lens. I mean I get about 5-10% more in the picture than I can see.

[Ira]

It takes Compact Flash, xD-Picture Card or Microdrive.

I have a CF card in there, I never heard of xD, and I THINK a Microdrive is like an external drive.

I just haven't been able to sit down with the camera for more than an hour two nights in a row, but wouldn't you think that this would be ENOUGH to learn how to take one stupid picture and set the display/save options? It's totally nuts:

There's a 10-step Quick Start sheet, but I ain't started NOTHING yet. And the way the huge manual is organized, one would think that these details would be AT LEAST in the first 50 pages. Like, I still don't even KNOW what internal memory it has. (That wasn't going to be a factor in my purchase decision anyway, because at the highest resolutions I always shoot at, the internal memory never does you much good anyway.)

I'm really excited about getting into this thing. It's bringing back my old passion for 35mm, and at around only $800 for the camera and two lenses, I didnt go TOTALLY nuts. But I can't believe how difficult this is to figure out.

It's totally retarded--or I am.

[asianflava]

It takes Compact Flash, xD-Picture Card or Microdrive.

I have a CF card in there, I never heard of xD, and I THINK a Microdrive is like an external drive.

I just haven't been able to sit down with the camera for more than an hour two nights in a row, but wouldn't you think that this would be ENOUGH to learn how to take one stupid picture and set the display/save options? It's totally nuts:

There's a 10-step Quick Start sheet, but I ain't started NOTHING yet. And the way the huge manual is organized, one would think that these details would be AT LEAST in the first 50 pages. Like, I still don't even KNOW what internal memory it has. (That wasn't going to be a factor in my purchase decision anyway, because at the highest resolutions I always shoot at, the internal memory never does you much good anyway.)

I'm really excited about getting into this thing. It's bringing back my old passion for 35mm, and at around only $800 for the camera and two lenses, I didnt go TOTALLY nuts. But I can't believe how difficult this is to figure out.

It's totally retarded--or I am.

xD is something that Olympus and Fuji came up with, I wouldn't bother with it because your cost per gigabyte is really high compared to CF you also can't get them in large capacity.
Mircodrive is exactly that, a tiny hard drive that is the size of a CF card, that is the cheapest cost per gigabyte. It has it's problems though, since it is a spinning hard drive, it is somewhat fragile. Also depending on the card, they can be slow. I have a Hitachi 2gig card that is fine however, I have a Segate 4gig card that is super slow.
CF card is the cheapest one to get and most versitile, everything has a CF port.

I played with that camera, it isn't too bad. I was able to take some shots in the store. It is pretty similar to mine, flip the switch to "On" turn the dial to "auto" and fire away using the default settings. After you get comfortable with the camera, then you can start turning knobs. Check to make shure your card is formatted. There should be a format option under "card setup". If you do this, anything on the card it will be gone.

Steve, yep that is due to the mag differences between the viewfinder and the image sensor. On the point and shoot you will get the same thing the LCD display image is usually spot on. It kinda drove me nuts till I started using the LCD display. I didn't use the display because it would eat batteries. After I got higher capacity batteries, that was a non-issue. On the DSLR, you don't have to option to use the LCD to compose shots.

[Ira]

You're right about the CF being the way to go--I read that. Also, this utilizes "fast something" CF cards.

Yeah, I formatted my card via the camera, but I still don't get it. Also, what I find was weird is that this camera doesn't have an option to delete the picture before it's saved to the card. This is something I always did:

Took the picture, reviewed it in the LCD display because the prefs were set that way, and then decided whether to save. With this camera, you have to enter playback mode to see your shots. And with its really nice large display, itwould have been nice for it to work the other way.

And yeah--that was something else I learned about digital SLRs that I didn't know before-- that you have to use the viewfinder only to compose, not the LCD. Also that they don't have movie mode--not that I would need it anyway:

No girls are flashing ME anymore where I would want to take a movie of it.