rob answers:

This is a fine camera. It will run about $700.00. The next step up is the XSI and this will run about $900.00. The 20D has been discontinued but you can still find some new ones if you look around. If you are just starting out and money is a concern I would get the XTI and invest any extra money in a better lens. Unless you are prepared to spend $5,000.00 and get a camera with a full size image sensor it wont make any difference which DSLR you have. The lenses can make a big difference though.

rob answers:

The 30D is rugged and well built. It has a bigger body as well, compared to XTi which has a plastic body. Furthermore, 30D is easier to use and operate. If you can afford, get the 30D, if not then get XTi.

The self cleaning sensor of XTi is its selling pitch. In the real photography world, it makes no real difference. Also xti is 10MP while 30D is 8.2 MP. That doesnt make any real difference either.

XTi is made for consumers and 30D is made for semi professionals.

The best place to buy is ebay because you pay way less compared to big box retailers.

But make sure you dont buy used or refurbished. But it brand new from a reputable ebay store. And dont buy it on auction. You can filter the results to show you Buy it Now prices and then filter it by price from lowest to highest. And see which store offers the lowest Buy it Now price. But if you buy it from Big Box then go to Best Buy.

rob answers:

Yes, In USA it is called an XTi while in the rest of the world it is called 400D.

Rohn

rob answers:

There is not much you cannot do with the on-board flash that you can do with an external flash except with more power. On-board flash units are only good when used as a flash-fill tool.

Experimenting with light, would require you to be able to move the lighting around the subject to create back lighting, side lighting, key and fill lighting and multi-lamp lighting. To be able to see what the light is doing to the subject BEFORE you take a shot, you need to use some continuous lighting lamps. You can start by using some inexpensive work lamps sold in home supply stores like Home Depot. You can get a couple of 500 watt lamps for under $40, then with your camera on a tripod, you can shoot products, adjusting the light directions and intensity as you learn how to control the lighting.

rob answers:

There are really only two filters you need:

1) A Skylight or UV filter to protect the front element of your lens.
2) A circular polarizer. Its used to darken a blue sky and to remove/reduce glare/reflections from glass, sand, water, snow and painted metal – but not polished metal. It also enhances colors.

“A cheap filter isn’t good and a good filter isn’t cheap.” So look at ones from Heliopan, Tiffen, B+W, Hoya, Singh-Ray. To avoid any possibility of vignetting (dark corners on your pictures) I suggest buying “thin” or “slim” mount filters. Buy a microfiber lens cleaning cloth when you buy your filters.

rob answers:

Canon and Nikon are both very good. You probably would be happy with a Canon or Nikon SLR type digital camera. Like most people who buy cameras and lenses chances are you won’t be satisfied with your lens, no matter what you get. Eventually you’ll either give up photography or end up owning three or more lenses. (Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Be sure to get a filter that will protect your lens.

rob answers:

The type of lens on your camera makes a huge difference in the quality of the sharpness you get. The “kit lens” that usually comes with the camera, while not total garbage, still leaves much to be desired. A lens that I highly recommend is Canon’s EF 50mm f1.8 lens. It’s the standard lens that I keep on my own Canon and you can get online it for around $100 new, $80-ish used:

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-50mm-1-8-Camera-Lens/dp/B00007E7JU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1258257769&sr=8-2

If you’re used to lenses that zoom, the downside of this 50mm lens is that it has a fixed-focal length, which means that you cannot zoom. However, the images are very sharp and with an aperture that goes to f1.8, it works well in low light and can produce very nice background blur which will give your photos a more sophisticated look. This lens will give you great quality for a great price.

That said, getting a more “pro” look takes a combination of good equipment, good knowledge of the equipment, and good skill, so brushing up on your photography basics will compliment the acquisition of any new toys you plan to get.

And one way to help get your colors to look bolder is to try a bit of post-processing in an editing program.

Don’t give up on the 1000D. I have an earlier model (XTi) that I use with great lenses and I love it!

rob answers:

UV lenses are filter UV lights in day time and has not any other effect. So you can use them indoor or nights as protective filter for your lens without causing any problems. I have 1 for my every lens.

Polarize filters (Circular Polarize) are especially useful at seasides or mountains for pushing contrast at the sky. But for the beginning I will advice you a skylight filter. It will be more useful for you. It made almost same thing but using is easier.

You can find what ever you need from

http://www.bhphoto.com

This store is famaus worldwide and I bought a lot of stuff.

rob answers:

If you have XP Home,
Go to your control panel,
Double Click the Scanners and Cameras folder to open
Connect your camera and turn it on
then Right-click on the Camera Icon
Left Click on Properties
Left Click on the “Events” Tab in the Camera Pop-Up Window
There you can either set a program such as “Microsoft Scanners and Camera Wizard” or put a check in “Prompt for which program to run”. Which will open that options menu you speak of.
There are two other choices there that are pretty well self explanatory.

Make sure you click on “Apply” and “OK”

rob answers:

Go to (control panel, then system, then go to the hardware tab). In the hardware tab you will see a button called device manager. Once in device manager (I would have your camera unplugged from the computer) – then replug the camera in while watching device manager. If it doesn’t auto find the hardware you can go to the (top-little pc monitor looking thing) and highlight it, then go to your “actions” tab and hit “scan for hardware changes”. That forces the PC to look for new devices such as flash drives, printers, cameras etc… 90% of the cameras will not need a driver installed for XP or Vista to use them. If not, it will come up a yellow (!) explanation mark beside the new hardware. That will tell you it needs to go to the camera’s manufacturer website and download the drivers for it. If it does find it while your monitoring that device manager page you will see a new device come up and you can double click over it after expanding the (+) sign and look to see if it found your camera. Also, alot of cameras will show up under mycomputer as a drive letter, sort of like a memory stick from a camera or cell phone.

rob answers:

Remove the battery. Reinsert it after a few seconds – see if this clears it up. Otherwise do a hard reset in the menu.

rob answers:

Well I think you are correct in that the camera is simply not recognizing that particular lens. About all I can say is to very closely inspect the contact ring on the 70 – 200 and take a pencil eraser and rub the entire surface. That can often clean up some residue that may be preventing full contact with the lens contacts and camera pick ups. Other than that, yeah, you are probably going to have to get in touch with Canon service.

You can also try taking the lens to a camera store and try it on any other Canon camera. If it works or does not, at least that would narrow the problem down to either the lens or your camera body.

Steve

rob answers:

Yes, as long as the lens is an EF mount lens, which it should be coming from a Canon EOS…. Being an older lens, the AF may not work… You may need to focus manually.

rob answers:

No, sorry. I’m assuming that you have a Canon film SLR and want to move up to digital.. Why not go for a Canon DSLR instead then?

rob answers:

No. You need a Canon digital SLR to swap lenses. The S3 IS is a point-and-shoot.

rob answers:

All of your EOS lenses made by Canon will work just fine. Some made by other manufacturers (like Sigma or Tamron) will probably work, but may not (those guys reverse-engineer Canon’s mount electronics, so when Canon changes things sometimes they’re not compatible). The good news is that the lens maker will probably update the lens (they put a new chip and/or rear mount on it) for free.

Keep in mind the “crop factor” — the apparent focal length of your lenses will be different on the DSLR (unless you get the full-frame Canon 5D), because the imaging chip is smaller than 35mm film size. There’s a 1.6X factor, so a 100mm lens on your film DSLR will have the same field of view as a 160mm lens on your film EOS camera…
Good luck.

rob answers:

No. 99.9% warranty would not be valid in India. You get warranty in India when product has international warranty.

rob answers:

Mine was made in Japan (Canon Rebel XTi).

rob answers:

Cameras with interchangeable lenses are just going to cost more. A lot more…

If you plan on getting that camera, there are add on lenses you can put on top of the built in lens. That would give you a little bit more versatility but if you want a real solution. You’re going to have to pony up for a dslr.

Ebay link for add on lenses
http://cgi.ebay.com/Tele-Wide-Angle-Lens-Kit-Canon-PowerShot-A1000-A580-IS_W0QQitemZ300335627414QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090804?IMSfp=TL090804168003r4411

rob answers:

1 Way Photo lied to you. All of the camera models are built to the same specs.

What a camera that is imported by someone other than the official USA Canon company is NOT covered by the US warranty, if fact USA Canon will not even touch the camera if it ever needs repair,under warranty or not. They have to be shipped to an International repair location and import/export issues apply.

Canon Rebel Cameras meant for Asian distribution models are called “Kiss”, those destined for Europe are xxxD’s and the Americas Rebel “X’s”. My guess is that there are other ways USA Canon will know if you send it a “gray market” camera to them for repair.

More on 1 Way Photo

http://www.resellerratings.com/store/1_Way_Photo#reviews

rob answers:

A brilliant camera at a brilliant price, you will need to run a very recent powerful computer to edit the video and get the latest Adobe DNG converter if you shoot RAW, but there is little else to fault.

Try it in the hand first as its neither compact or light.

rob answers:

I don’t agree with PS, I have a D300s and I have a friend who has a 7D, we did a shootout at all ISOs and compared pic for pic. The noise was close but a slight edge went to the 7D. The image quality easily went to the 7D. The 18MP is what really sold me when I saw a blow up from his camera shot at ISO 1600. From that point on, 12MP is no longer enough for me. The 300s images were very contrasty which caused a great loss of detail in the shadow area and the colors were exagerated and unreal. I now have my D300s on craigslist and fully prepared to get a 7D.

rob answers:

Don’t be afraid to jump in at this level. Both cameras have a “P” setting that is pretty much automatic. You can use it when you are just not comfortable making the decisions for exposure on your own and even when you just don’t feel like messing with that stuff.

The thing about these cameras is that they are very comparable. It will come down to which one feels best in your hands. Since you have a little “shutter time,” you may be developing a sense of what you like. Try each one in a camera shop and see which one had the controls in a good position for your hands. Someone said that Canon is more user friendly, but I happen to prefer the Nikon approach. It was a very easy transition from film cameras to Nikon DSLRs. Maybe Canon is just as easy, but Nikon seems to put things where I expect to find them.

Check out this side-by-side comparison: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos7d/page22.asp

Note the comments at the bottom of the page. Pixels DO matter when you want to crop or make a big enlargement, but overall, the image quality is quite useful in either camera.

Comparison of RAW images: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos7d/page25.asp

Nikon defaults to a slightly sofer image than Canon, but you can easily change the standard sharpening in either camera if this is a concern to you.

My answer? I’m a Nikon user and a Nikon fan, but once you get to this level of camera, either one is an excellent choice. Buy the one that more of your friends own so you will be able to ask for their help and borrow their lenses.

rob answers:

The D7000 is a fine camera. To date, it is the only one that can use the very high speed SDHC/UHS-1 cards at their rated speed – which might be good if you do a lot of HD video. I suspect Canon will eventually catch up with their next series of models… Or maybe not.

The Canon D7 still uses a 1.6x crop sensor – smaller than the D7000′s 1.5x sensor. While the Canon sensor is about 7% smaller, ask yourself why the Canon doesn’t have their up-scale larger 1.29x sensor for it’s premium price?

rob answers:

There are really two ways to go.

1) use fast prime lenses so you can control depth of field
2) buy a couple of zoom lenses that cover the field of view you need for most of your scripts.

Or of course you can mix and match lenses as needed.

What will determine the lens aperture is the lighting, since the shutter speed will be dictated by the frame rate you are shooting the video, 24 fps or 30 fps.

Zoom suggestions.

EF-S 10-22 mm Canon or 11-16 mm Tokina
EF-S 18-200 mm Canon.

Prime
EF 14 mm (wide angle lens)
EF 35 mm (normal lens)
EF 50 mm (medium telephoto lens)
EF 100 mm macro (telephoto and macro lens)

As you can see, you will be building a camera system, one lens at a time.

It is rare that anyone just buys exactly what they think they need all at once.

* the costs can steal food from your kids
* it is rare that someone just getting into shooting video or stills knows which lenses they will actually need until they have a few years experience using their camera(s)

rob answers:

There is no “60D lens”. The 60D is a DSLR that uses interchangeable lenses and the issue you are having can be the effect of the lens.

For example, on a 75-300mm F/3.5-5.6 lens…zoomed out at 75mm the maximum aperture is f/3.5, but zoomed in at 300mm, the maximum aperture is only f/5.6…a difference of 1-1/3 stops, over twice as much light.

If that is the problem, you need to get a lens that has a fixed aperture like 70-200 f/2.8…that way the aperture remains the same throughout the focal length.

rob answers:

Only for video, 600D is a better buy because they both use the same sensor and an articulating screen, so the 600D is just cheaper.

60D has 5.3 vs 3.7fps, slightly faster AF and bigger viewfinder and top LCD screen. For photo both will be good, don’t listen to those who say if video is good, then photo is bad – or vice versa.

Here’s a DSLR Buying Guide – http://www.the-dslr-photographer.com/2009/11/which-dslr-to-buy/

rob answers:

Hey,

For low light and prime, I’d get Canon EF 50mm f/1.4. I also recommend Canon EF-S 17-55, 24-70 (bit more), 10-22.

But to help you more, here’s a site with the best tutorial for buying a lens

Here’s a post called ‘Buying a Lens for Canon (7 subgroups) – http://www.the-dslr-photographer.com/2009/11/buying-lens.html

The site has many more tutorials, tips, reviews and guides!

rob answers:

Can you use a card reader instead and copy/paste from the card to your pictures file.

rob answers:

Connect the USB then turn the camera on then push the print/connect button on the camera (looks like a printer).

If that doesnt work try using ZoomBrowsers interface.

If that doesnt work try this
Click the start symbol>computer
If your camera is listed there (will probly look like a hard drive) then your computer sees it but hasnt assigned a program to communicate with it. If you dont see it there hit F5 (refresh). If it still doesnt come up then you should contact Canon directly.

A much easier way of doing this is to just get a card reader and use ZoomBrowser to access your card. Make sure that the card reader can access CF cards and not just the more popular SD cards.

rob answers:

They have a toll free phone number or try your local Canon dealer for help.

rob answers:

The problem is the Canon software that comes with the present cameras is set up for 98 system 2, Windows 200 and XP not Vista. Go to www.canoneos.com and click on the photo of the XT follow the prompts on the right and you will find the Vista drivers in the updates. I just for off the phone with the folks for Canon with the same problem for an XTi.

Happy shooting.

rob answers:

You can check at your local library or book store and browse at some before you borrow or buy one. There are numerous web sites that offer tips on photography. I am fond of the following link. It deals with night photography. I actually practiced and took pictures using the suggestions offered and they turned out great. I have a Canon XS and experiment alot with the settings while taking pictures. After taking a picture that I viewed in the LCD and liked, I would save the settings. Experimentation is part of the fun of photography.

Http://www.slrphotographyguide.com/camera/settings/night-slr-settings.shtml

rob answers:

The only way to learn is to put the camera on manual and start controlling your exposures. Soon you will know when to use a tripod and when you can hand hold it.

Shooting using the aperture priority mode is fine if you need to assure the fastest possible shutter speed or want to control your depth of field

rob answers:

I bought my used rebel 300d for $275 and I love it. It looks and feels brand new so no regrets there. I suggest you buy it the same place I did:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007YEOA6?ie=UTF8&tag=dailyelect-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0007YEOA6

If you do buy it, get this extension kit as well:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003Y60DZO?ie=UTF8&tag=dailyelect-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B003Y60DZO

Hope this helped!

rob answers:

The putative author of the earliest sources of the Pentateuch in which God is called Elohim.

rob answers:

NOTE: The XTi is discontinued and has been replaced by the XSi.

All camera manufacturers use a proprietary lens mount so just buy Canon lenses for your Canon camera. Tamron, Sigma and Tokina also make lenses for your camera.

Buy the camera with the standard 18-55mm lens. You’ll need to spend time READING & STUDYING the Owner’s Manual for your new camera. Then, spend 3 to 6 months actually learning to use the camera and lens before even thinking about another lens. During this learning time you will begin discovering what type of photography you do the most and the capabilities/limitations of the 18-55mm lens.

Buy and read this book: “David Busch’s Quick Snap Guide to Using Digital SLR Lenses” http://www.dbusch.com Since he has written a Guide for your camera you should buy it also. It will help make the Owner’s Manual clearer and more easily understood.

I strongly urge ignoring any lens purchase suggestions at this time. Since you have no idea (yet) of the type of photography you like doing how can anyone else know what lens or lenses you need?

Taking a couple of photography classes would really help. If classes aren’t possible then you’ll have to self-educate. Its more difficult but doable.

Here are some books worth having:

“Understanding Exposure” & “Understanding Shutter Speed”, both by Bryan Peterson.

“Digital SLR Handbook” by John Freeman.

“The Art of Digital Photography” by Joseph Meehan.

I believe anyone seriously interested in photography should have their own personal library of photography books. Consider them as an investment.

A subscription to a photography magazine would be helpful. My personal favorite is SHUTTERBUG ( http://www.shutterbug.com ) but you should read the ones at your library and decide for yourself which one you like.

I bought my first real camera – a Minolta SRT-100 – in July of 1971. It came with a 50mm f1.7 lens. If memory serves, it was at least a year before I bought another lens.

rob answers:

If your budget is $300, I’d advocate the starter lens.

For around $450, Canon makes a great 28-135mm Image Stabilizing lens that is a good choice for general, all-around photography. It’s got enough zoom (particularly with the XTi) to get in closer on sports, and it’s wide enough to do vacation photos and get the Christmas tree.

Http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=149&modelid=7337

rob answers:

Far away … Does that mean shooting wildlife or field sports?

You may find that a lens in the 70-300mm range will do what you want. Don’t be tempted to buy a non-Canon lens. You will be better off with a good used Canon than a new third-party lens.

Flash wise?

There are a couple of Canon dedicated flash units that will reach out to about 60 feet.

Go to Canon USA’s website and see what is available. Then ask the question again with specific lens and flash models we can compare for you.

rob answers:

For as long as it’s the EF series lenses which you won’t have any problems.