DSLR advice needed

[Bobster]

well difference between the 400 and 30D is the 30 has ISO3200, spot metering, shutter speed of 1/8000 and a metal body

looking at the 500D spec, looks like Canon have upped their game as far as consumer cameras go.. now has ISO3200, expandable to ISO6400/12800 and movie mode..

i don't think you'll need a shutter of 1/8000 anytime soon.. and unless you plan on throwing your camera around, the magnesium alloy body isn't that much of a bonus.. the 500D is looking like a really good choice (appart from the lack of CF card - not sure on SD as a DSLR card..)

[Blastuk]

Originally Posted by Bobster

well difference between the 400 and 30D is the 30 has ISO3200, spot metering, shutter speed of 1/8000 and a metal body

looking at the 500D spec, looks like Canon have upped their game as far as consumer cameras go.. now has ISO3200, expandable to ISO6400/12800 and movie mode..

i don't think you'll need a shutter of 1/8000 anytime soon.. and unless you plan on throwing your camera around, the magnesium alloy body isn't that much of a bonus.. the 500D is looking like a really good choice (appart from the lack of CF card - not sure on SD as a DSLR card..)

Nothing wrong with sd cards, they're a *lot* cheaper than cf cards and sandisk do some 20mb/s ones

[BUFF]

Originally Posted by Blastuk

Nothing wrong with sd cards, they're a *lot* cheaper than cf cards and sandisk do some 20mb/s ones

they aren't a lot cheaper if you compare equivalent performance ones & CF is more robust

[chinny]

Originally Posted by GSte

Also, should I buy a UV filter for every lens as well?

I'd have a look at a circular polarising filter if you can rather than a UV or a clear.
It'll help bring out colours a lot better. Have a quick look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogr...lter#Polarizer to see the difference.

[Blastuk]

Originally Posted by BUFF

they aren't a lot cheaper if you compare equivalent performance ones & CF is more robust

Robust in what way? The more expensive ones are probably faster than SD but SD is more versatile I find.

Originally Posted by chinny

I'd have a look at a circular polarising filter if you can rather than a UV or a clear.
It'll help bring out colours a lot better. Have a quick look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogr...lter#Polarizer to see the difference.

Polarising filters tend to reduce light coming to the sensor, it's not something you'd want to keep on your lens permanently like you can with a UV fillter.. and they have different purposes so it's not like you can replace one with the other.

[BUFF]

Originally Posted by Blastuk

Robust in what way? The more expensive ones are probably faster than SD but SD is more versatile I find..

more rugged, less likely to get damaged etc..

the fastest CF cards do 90MB/s ...
More versatile in what way?
you mean that more types of device accept them?

[Blastuk]

Originally Posted by BUFF

more rugged, less likely to get damaged etc..

the fastest CF cards do 90MB/s ...
More versatile in what way?
you mean that more types of device accept them?

I think the best SD still only does about 30mb/s atm... can't compete there.

I don't have a problem with SD cards getting damaged, they light plastic things and I really can't imagine how they'd break.

Yeah, it's pretty handy that you can pull out an SD card and put it in another device or lend it to a friend who has a compact but their card is full, etc..

I think there's nothing wrong with using SD cards for the consumer dslrs, the pro bodies obviously would be better off with CF and I won't argue that

[BUFF]

Originally Posted by Blastuk

I don't have a problem with SD cards getting damaged, they light plastic things and I really can't imagine how they'd break.

precisely because they are thinner & smaller & hence more flexible. apparently they are also more prone to corruption.
cards get swapped in the field & people might sit on them, stand on them etc. - they even sometimes go through a washing machine in a pocket ...

[kalniel]

There's not a lot in it ruggedness-wise - they're both pretty indestructable.

SD has the advantage of being small, which means slightly easier to carry several around.

SD has the disadvantage of being small, which means slightly easier to lose several.

CF are available quite a lot faster, however you won't notice this on your camera, but instead when you're transfering files to your computer. If doing that, don't forget to make sure your reader can do SDHC if using SD.. there are different formats. CF seem rather more universal - there are things like UDMA and so on, but most devices seem to be fine with all of that as long as they can read CF.

You can get wi-fi enabled SDHC cards though which are neat.

But ultimately, it's not something I'd use to chose a camera on. I have a mix of CF and SD using cameras. My computers all read CF, but I have to use an adaptor for SDHC, but said adaptor came free with an SDHC card anyway.

[unreal]

Originally Posted by Blastuk

Polarising filters tend to reduce light coming to the sensor, it's not something you'd want to keep on your lens permanently like you can with a UV fillter.. and they have different purposes so it's not like you can replace one with the other.

Personally as long as the light settings are good enough, I tend to keep the polarising filter on anyway. It brings out so much depth and colour that it's worth using it as much as possible in my opinion. My holiday shots would look so much less without it!

[kalniel]

Originally Posted by unreal

Personally as long as the light settings are good enough, I tend to keep the polarising filter on anyway. It brings out so much depth and colour that it's worth using it as much as possible in my opinion. My holiday shots would look so much less without it!

Have you tried just using a more vivid picture style? If there's no preset then just bump up saturation and contrast and I bet you can get a similar 'pop' to holiday shots but without the light loss. It's not like film days where it was hard work to adjust the colours of a shot! (Kodachrome.. here's looking at you!)

Polorisers are still very useful when trying to cut out reflections of course, but anything colour-wise is so easily done in post-process/camera adjustments with digital.

[BUFF]

Originally Posted by kalniel

CF are available quite a lot faster, however you won't notice this on your camera,

you will on some cameras if you use continuous drive a lot as they will maintain a higher throughput once you hit the buffer.

[kalniel]

Originally Posted by BUFF

you will on some cameras if you use continuous drive a lot as they will maintain a higher throughput once you hit the buffer.

Only if the camera is able to write at 45 MB/s or so, which they generally can't. Mostly as long as you have 20MB/s or above it's fast enough for the camera and the out of buffer rate doesn't really change.

[Gunbuster]

One of the reasons that CF was dumped from compacts is (maybe was) it's unbuffered pin interface. Canon in paticular were getting loads of returns from people busting the pins and short circuting on CF cameras. Hence why a nice buffered interface like SD took off.

[BUFF]

Originally Posted by kalniel

Only if the camera is able to write at 45 MB/s or so, which they generally can't. Mostly as long as you have 20MB/s or above it's fast enough for the camera and the out of buffer rate doesn't really change.

don't need to be able to write at 45MB/s to see the difference - e.g. on my A700 you can see a difference between 20MB/s & 30MB/s & I believe it tops out ~37MB/s which again shows a difference from the lower rate.
btw I'm assuming shooting RAW files as e.g. the A700 will do unlimited jpegs at full speed until the card is full.

[TheAnimus]

Originally Posted by kalniel

There's not a lot in it ruggedness-wise - they're both pretty indestructable.

SD has the advantage of being small, which means slightly easier to carry several around.

SD has the disadvantage of being small, which means slightly easier to lose several.

CF are available quite a lot faster, however you won't notice this on your camera, but instead when you're transfering files to your computer. If doing that, don't forget to make sure your reader can do SDHC if using SD.. there are different formats. CF seem rather more universal - there are things like UDMA and so on, but most devices seem to be fine with all of that as long as they can read CF.

You can get wi-fi enabled SDHC cards though which are neat.

But ultimately, it's not something I'd use to chose a camera on. I have a mix of CF and SD using cameras. My computers all read CF, but I have to use an adaptor for SDHC, but said adaptor came free with an SDHC card anyway.

This is the truth,

Anything below a full frame, will probably have body limitation when writing RAW, rather than the card.

The size, and cost as well is something worth debating, the fact you can buy 16GB cards for £15 from play.com that are really quite decent, and in the same physical size you can easily put 4 of them as you could one CF card, this does make it cheaper and easier for traveling i guess (faster smaller cards are oten cheaper than larger capacity, thou there is an optimum that might be eceptable for plenty of people).

When it comes to reading them, most netbooks use SD, this ultimately is why i quite like having an SD camera, SD is far more common reader than CF.