You've got a Fresnel screen installed in your D50? I wonder if it's possible to get one of those for my 40D?

Those things were bloody brilliant! I never had an out-of-focus shot with that thing in my OM1n.

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Si
DCM
spiritflier.com
My Flickr
BPITW x 4

Yip, here we go:

http://www.katzeyeoptics.com/cat--Canon-DSLRs--cat_canon.html

Be very careful when installing it    

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Chris Seary

My gallery

My Blog

I've just read, and compared, the reviews of the Pentax K20D between DCM and another camera magazine. DCM seemed to enjoy being hung-up about the "kit" lens performance, which is odd because the camera's a DSLR... you can have easily stick another lens on it. The other camera magazine, they instantly commented on the cameras build quality... "when it hit the sand with a dull thud I picked it up, blew away the grit and carried on shooting. No fuss, no malfunction, no problem". Not one comment about the lens they'd clamped on it.

Just how it should be, considering the review's about a camera *body*.

I'm also in agreement about the comments regarding the "Stick the K20D innards into a Canon 40D" bit in the review. It was uncalled for, imho.

I'd like to know what DCM would do for lens reviews... camera body build quality?

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Galleries: Monochrome : 11 of the best

Probably what one did about the CZ16-85mm, put under cons "only available in A-mount". Never saw that as a con for an EF lens.....

AP just reviewed the K20D, and liked it, but not as much as the A700. Curiously state can't see the liveview being used a great deal, then point it out as a minus on the A700... Dontcha just love contradicting yourself?

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My DCM Gallery

I bought a K10D because it's built like a tank, and the image stabilisation is built into the body, so all glassware is stabilised. And for someone as short sighted as me the camera top display screen is a must. It's great, it works.

My neighbour, Michel is a Canon man. His cameras are great too, they work. He paid twice as much for his all purpose zoom lens as I am about to do because he has to buy glass with the stabilisation system in every single lens.

He's happy, I'm happy. Buy what you want, and you'll be happy too.

But obviously you should only buy a Pentax, Samsung, Olympus or Sony!

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BPITW twice
'rules are for the obedience of fools . . ' Douglas Bader
Tringle WP Gallery

Tringle WP:

I bought a K10D because it's built like a tank, and the image stabilisation is built into the body, so all glassware is stabilised. And for someone as short sighted as me the camera top display screen is a must. It's great, it works. My neighbour, Michel is a Canon man. His cameras are great too, they work. He paid twice as much for his all purpose zoom lens as I am about to do because he has to buy glass with the stabilisation system in every single lens. He's happy, I'm happy. Buy what you want, and you'll be happy too. But obviously you should only buy a Pentax, Samsung, Olympus or Sony!

Don't be daft! It's got to be a Nikon!!!!

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SK
The Best Photographer in the world 4th November - 5th November 2006 & 17th-18 November 2007
Oldboy’s Gallery

chris@seary.com:

Yip, here we go:

http://www.katzeyeoptics.com/cat--Canon-DSLRs--cat_canon.html

Be very careful when installing it    

Brilliant... Thanks Chris.

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Si
DCM
spiritflier.com
My Flickr
BPITW x 4

I've just got the mag.

I was quite surprised they had a pop at the kit lens. DPReview gave it a pretty good score, testing it as an aftermarket job. I suppose its possible they may not be the same I dunno.

I've got the Samsung version of its predecessor (stay with me) and  I'm pretty impressed. Its not perfect eg there's vignetting but its well sharp.

And it is only a kit lens after all.

They seemed to like most of the rest of the camera though.

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BPitW 9-10 June 2007.
My website. My DCM gallery. flickr toy

I found that when I was shopping for my first digital camera, i had set parameters and functions in my mind. Feel in my hand, umber of pixels, picture quality, memory card type, price and lenses in the kit. Not very scientific, but I had not hearf of raw, image stabilisation etc. I purchased a Sony A100 and it was fine and dandy. I had no concerns or problems. In fact it has much much more than I wanted. Good photos out of the box, getting better as I learn what it can do. The main problem is still the guy trying to work the tool.

Then I read a review which highlighted apparent shortcomings. Before the review I did not notice them, after the review I was looking for them. The indepth assassination of my camera made me aware of its problems, problems which I have to remind myself are irrelevant to me as I don't enlarge to A1 size, I don't crop to 1cm fro ma distance of 100m. I have also managed to learn where the not-intuitive buttons are.

In my opinion, you will get used to the camera you have, the review are the opinion of one man, the compnies will upgrade just to make money out of you. I am more than happy with my Sony, and  I will not need to upgrade until something absolutely fantastic comes along, or my camera dies.

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Yours

Steve
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Probably the worst photography to grace this group, but learning fast - very fast.

When you read the in depth reviews on dpreview you tend to find they find all sorts of things that could be improved, even on the highly recommended ones. But you then read that unless you're going to constantly want huge prints you'll probably never notice. They need to nit pick because the differences are so small.

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a few mediocre pics

sue allen:

They need to nit pick because the differences are so small.

This is so true. Perhaps the items that are discussed when nit picking are so trivial that they are more down to personal preference?

One thing that I think is often left out is the system that the camera belongs to. As we're talking about DSLRs, it's probably daft to just concentrate on the kit lens without mentioning all the other stuff that can be attached.

For me, the choice was between Canon and Nikon, due to lens range. If, like many, you buy the following:

• 10-20mm
• 18-55mm
• 55-200 or 70 300mm
• 18-55mm

then there's no difference between any of them.

Anything more specialist leads to a clear result for Canon and Nikon. That and price were the clear differentiator for me (ie. I reckon they all allow me to alter focus, shutter speed, white balance and aperture, so I'll buy the cheapest). Thus I got the Nikon D50.

Really, other than the two criteria above, I couldn't see that I'd take different pictures on any other APS-C format DSLR in the shop.

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Chris Seary

My gallery

My Blog

sue allen:

They need to nit pick because the differences are so small.

And how many of us actually want to spend hours analysing the results of our camera in graphs and spectral form, or under a microscope?  And how many of us actually take photographs of test cards in lab conditions? 

I just want to take photos and look at them, if they look good I'm happy regardless of some software analysis of the image.  My eyes are not a spectral analyser, my brain is not a super computer, and my photographs are not a test card 

One that made me laugh recently (can't remember exactly where, so not quoted) was "start-up speed is a bit sluggish compared to the competition".  Yes.  O.25 seconds is slow compared to 0.13.   I do feel sorry for those people that have to wait 0.12 seconds longer for their camera to start up.  Maybe they need to come up with a pre-emptive system, such as flicking the on switch over when taking the camera out of the bag, or before removing the lens cap (unless they manage to do all of these in less than 0.13 seconds).

 

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martin_hurton:

sue allen:

They need to nit pick because the differences are so small.

One that made me laugh recently (can't remember exactly where, so not quoted) was "start-up speed is a bit sluggish compared to the competition".  Yes.  O.25 seconds is slow compared to 0.13.   I do feel sorry for those people that have to wait 0.12 seconds longer for their camera to start up.  Maybe they need to come up with a pre-emptive system, such as flicking the on switch over when taking the camera out of the bag, or before removing the lens cap (unless they manage to do all of these in less than 0.13 seconds).

 

 Martin that reminds me about how they always critisized the start up time of the Oly due to the dust buster starting up at switch on....but think about it, the competition runs dust removal when switching off so start time is not effected ..but with the camera bouncing about in your camera bag moving dust around the sensor housing you want the dust removed before you start taking pictures not after when its to late!   Any way by the time I've switched it on and brought it up to my eye its done its thing.

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Paul
My glass is 4/3rds full :)

MY GALLERY

My DCM Gallery

And I've just switched the dust removal feature "on at start-up" in the D300's custom menu because of exactly this.  Change a lens, switch the camera on, clean dust.  You don't want to clean the sensor when switching the camera off so it's nice and clean just before you remove the lens  

I notice that DC Mags E420 review has a comments box that says some people are concerned about image quality with the smaller 4/3rds sensor, but doesn't continue to give any of the benefits of the 4/3rds system, which surely an unbiased review should have? Who needs any of it anyway when you can just have Photoshop

It was my last issue this month anyway, I've found magazines more suited to me.  

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martin_hurton:

I notice that DC Mags E420 review has a comments box that says some people are concerned about image quality with the smaller 4/3rds sensor, but doesn't continue to give any of the benefits of the 4/3rds system, which surely an unbiased review should have?

Just a thought, but while I'm in my 'ranting about camera marketing' mode.......

The magazines seem to slag off Olympus for the smaller sensor, moaning about image quality.

Do you think they'll do the same for APS-C format when the manufacturers try to drive us all to 'upgrade' to full frame digital sensors?

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Chris Seary

My gallery

My Blog