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So just recently I sold a bunch of my lenses and 7D to trade up to a 5D Mkii and zeiss 50mm f2.0. A couple of weeks later a family called me to do a portrait session. I was a little nervous because my zeiss is manual focus only, and I would be shooting 3 dogs, and a 2, 5, and 6 year old. I did the session and it went great

I thought some of you might be interested in how this went as well as how the lens performed. Zeiss recently started making manual focus lenses in canon and nikon mounts. In the canon version, you have all the usual metering, aperture control, and even focus confirmation. The missing element is autofocus. This zeiss lens is a couple hundred bucks cheaper than canon’s 50mm f/1.2L, and the build quality of the zeiss is far superior (all metal, even the hood, and buttery focus ring), but you do lose some weather sealing, and an f-stop. Most of the reviews state that the sharpness of the zeiss is better than canon’s L, at least in the corners — they may be equivalent in the center.

The manual focus (MF) requirement of the Zeiss lenses was the biggest adjustment after relying on AF for many years. That said, you’d be surprised at how quickly you get accustomed to MF. The first obstacle I ran into was that manually focusing the Zeiss was almost impossible with the stock focus screen on the 7D and 5D. The stock focus screen is optimized for both fast and slow lenses, but if you look through your viewfinder with a 50mm f1.4 lens, you aren’t viewing a DoF of f/1.4 (even with the depth of field preview button on). Instead, the depth of field you’re seeing is only about f/4.0 — this is due to the microprisms embedded in the stock focus screen. So, step 1 was buying canon’s “S” focus screen, optimized for f2.8 and faster lenses. With this screen installed it’s WYSIWYG when you look thru the viewfinder, and manual focusing is a much easier.

My first worry when shooting portraits with the Zeiss was, “how many shots am I going to miss?”. After a bit of practice, the answer for me is “not many”. Even with AF, when shooting kids, you’re going to miss shots. One issue with shooting AF is that you have to rely on a focus point. Previously, I usually set the middle focus point, focused on the eyes, then reframed the shot. The problem with this technique is that you have to move the camera when reframing the shot, and the subject or camera may move throwing off focus in the process.

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Hi currently the i9950 printer doesn’t seem to work with RAIDiator 4.1.8

Could anyone please add support for this usb printer?

It adds fine through the network and says it’s connected and ready. You can get the print options up in windows etc but then when you try do a maintenance clean, or print something out nothing happens. The document doesn’t even go in a print queue, it just disappears.

Please help.

Thanks very much.

Will you upgrade to the new Canon 5D when it becomes available or is your 5D MkII good enough? What features would sell you on a MkIII? Maybe they will call it 5D x as they have with the 1D? I have a 5D MKI so it is a no brainer for me to go to the new body.
David

Hello ,

i’m relative new photography , my camera body is a 20D i’ve been for a wile searching for information abot the best format to shot and yhe most recommended between professional and amateur is RAW format over JPEG.

I recently found this info from a we;; know professional photographer (weeding):

CANON EOS10/20D SETTINGS
My recommendation for all Canon 10D/20d for greatest midrange detail and optimum workflow up to 10×15″ prints:
Parameter 1: SETUP:
SIZE – Medium Stairstep
SATURATION – MINUS 1
CONTRAST – MINUS 2
SHARPNESS – PLUS 2
FLASH – E-TTL with no exposure compensation
METEING MODE: Multizone (eyeball with two parenthesis)


My question is : does this setting will affect or improve your qualiy pictures if you shoot in RAW format?? i guess no , but now i’m a little confused.

thank you in advance.

Ruben

Successor to the two year old 50D, the EOS 60D offers a number of key highlights, including an 18 megapixel CMOS sensor, 3 inch vari-angle LCD screen, Full HD video capture with manual controls, etc. Just like the 7d and 550D / Rebel T2i models, the EOS 60D offers a choice of 24, 25 or 30fps when recording Full HD video clips, and 50/60fps when shooting at 720p or VGA resolution. Regardless of 1080p or 720p, Canon EOS 60D DSLR records its movies as MOV files using variable bitrates H.264 compression.

To the EOS 60D users who would like to burn EOS 60D Videos to DVD for viewing thru a DVD player hooked-up to your HDTV, you may need to convert EOS 60D MOV video to MPEG-4 compatible with DVD burning tools such as iDVD. Now I will share you the solution about convert EOS 60D Video to iDVD with high speed conversion.

Preparation: Install and launch Brorsoft Video Converter for Mac.
After downloading the converter, install it on your iMac/Macbook and then run it. The software interface will appear in front of you.

Step 1: Pull Canon EOS 60D videos into Brorsoft EOS 60D Converter.
Connect your Canon EOS 60D DSLR with your Mac, copy all the MOV videos in Canon 60D to a file folder. And then click the “Add” button to pull them into the converter. All the video clips will be listed in the imported file field.

Tips: If you want to get only one single editable file, you can use this mac EOS 60D converter’s “merge into one file” feature. Load all of your separate H.264 MOV files to the program; check the box “Merge into one file” on the main interface with only one click.

Step 2: Set the output format as “MPEG-4” compatible with iDVD.
Click the “Format” drop-down list below the imported file field. Then you come to the output format menu, where you can choose a right output format. In the “Common Video” section, select “MPEG-4(*.mp4)” as iDVD friendly format ). Set the output routine in the “Output” box so that you can easily find the converted videos.

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The rumors are flying now, just a few days before the new Canon releases (Jan 24th)… Been looking around some of the sites and have found one that seems to be pretty good at spreading rumors…

http://canonrumors.com/

Hopefully some of these rumors will be true. I know that I’ve been holding out for some new flavor of the 5D… Or, maybe even one of the XTs’s… hmmm….

Successor to the two year old 50D, the EOS 60D offers a number of key highlights, including an 18 megapixel CMOS sensor, 3 inch vari-angle LCD screen, Full HD video capture with manual controls, etc. Just like the 7d and 550D / Rebel T2i models, the EOS 60D offers a choice of 24, 25 or 30fps when recording Full HD video clips, and 50/60fps when shooting at 720p or VGA resolution. Regardless of 1080p or 720p, Canon EOS 60D DSLR records its movies as MOV files using variable bitrates H.264 compression.

To the EOS 60D users who would like to burn EOS 60D Videos to DVD for viewing thru a DVD player hooked-up to your HDTV, you may need to convert EOS 60D MOV video to MPEG-4 compatible with DVD burning tools such as iDVD. Now I will share you the solution about convert EOS 60D Video to iDVD with high speed conversion.

Preparation: Install and launch Brorsoft Video Converter for Mac.
After downloading the converter, install it on your iMac/Macbook and then run it. The software interface will appear in front of you.

Step 1: Pull Canon EOS 60D videos into Brorsoft EOS 60D Converter.
Connect your Canon EOS 60D DSLR with your Mac, copy all the MOV videos in Canon 60D to a file folder. And then click the “Add” button to pull them into the converter. All the video clips will be listed in the imported file field.

Tips: If you want to get only one single editable file, you can use this mac EOS 60D converter’s “merge into one file” feature. Load all of your separate H.264 MOV files to the program; check the box “Merge into one file” on the main interface with only one click.

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Hi, I’m looking for a walk around zoom to take some wildlife/nature shots and I don’t know what else right now. Has anyone used this lens and what do you think of it? BH has it for $570.I looked at one as it was amazing how it took the shake out as compared to one without IS. I also looked at the 70-200 f4 L. I didn’t see much difference in the shots that I took in the store.

Thanks for your input.
Ray

Is anyone who owns this lens experiencing the wierd flare issues that have been reported on various forums?

Martin – I know you have this lens. Have you had any problems?

I was pretty close to buying one of these, but I suppose I’ll now wait until the issue is resolved.

Marc

Martin and others,

What macro are you using and is it enough? I’m currently looking at the canon 100mm and 180mm… But is 100 enough? The other thing I still don’t understand are extension tubes. Any of you use them?

Thanks,
John