Canon DSLRs: on the edge of reason

[Robthebrit]

I could not agree more about the viewfinder, one of the first things I noticed about the 5D was the viewfinder - its big and bright, just like a film camera.

Rob

 

[articulate]

9. Finally, I want to caution you on your total cost of ownership for a DSLR. Most people don’t think about the cost of memory, or storage capacity (think in terms of 100’s of GB’s or even a few TB’s), and a solid backup solution—you’re gonna want to store these somewhere other than on the main hard drives.

I hope this wasn't a complete rant and that careful consideration of some of these "other" less discussed aspects will help in the decision.

What an awesome post. Many thanks.

First, this conversation has forced me to apply the brakes. I was ready to purchase the 20D or 30D, but it seems I can simply wait longer, save more and get the 5D. Like you and Scott said, I'll be checking these out in person at the camera shop before I purchase.

Someone else mentioned the file storage. What do you use (anybody)? I had assumed my computer hard drive wouldn't be a smart place. DVD? Something else?

 

[sinuhexavier]

I store everything on Lacie hard drives and then have hard copies on DVD's just in case... I keep my G5's HD empty of any working files.

It was a tedious task getting there after scanning all my chrome, but now I have my workflow dialed in so that it doesn't take much extra time. I keep the hard drives at the office and the DVD's at home in a fire proof safe in case of fire. My original slides are all stored in climate controlled media storage.

This system has worked well for me.

One last thought... I haven't had much luck with memory cards over 4Gigs. I have also found there is a certain piece of mind when you have backed up after 200+ images.

 

[Pskhaat]

I haven't had much luck with memory cards over 4Gigs.

Sorry if this is a `duh' comment, but the 4gib limit is the 32-bit addressable memory limit. I can't imagine we'll see 48|64-bit memory addressing in consumer devices for a little while unless these things are using paged memory access stuff which is implemented so differently.

 

[tdesanto]

What an awesome post. Many thanks.

First, this conversation has forced me to apply the brakes. I was ready to purchase the 20D or 30D, but it seems I can simply wait longer, save more and get the 5D. Like you and Scott said, I'll be checking these out in person at the camera shop before I purchase.

Someone else mentioned the file storage. What do you use (anybody)? I had assumed my computer hard drive wouldn't be a smart place. DVD? Something else?

You're welcome. Mark, I'm glad to help anyone seriously interested in getting more out of photography. I didn't mean to rant, but there's a lot to consider (at least I think so) when you're spending that kind of dough and making that kind of commitment. PM me if you'd like to take this offline to consider more options, whether you should spend the money on better glass, etc. It really all depends on the direction you're heading and your requirements. As you know already, there's a thousand ways to skin any cat. It all depends on what you need and what you want to accomplish. Let the requirements drive the tools you need.

File storage: I use an IDE drive with a drive bay that has a removeable slot. I take the drive offsite to work in case I have a fire or some other catastrophe at home. I'd be completely ruined at home, but at least I'll have my photos. In the IT world, we call this offsite storage, but we usually have a more sophisticated, automated solution, but this works for me and is not that expensive. The bay is somewhere between $20-40 and the drive is a standard IDE 7200 RPM 500GB drive ($200-300). It's enough for now, but I'm getting full. DVD's are okay, but I find that when I'm shooting RAW, that I end up filling about 7-10GB's of flash cards on a single trip or photoshoot. So, that's about 3 DVD's, and that's just for the ugly unedited versions. You'll need more to store the edited versions.

You'd be surprised how ugly RAW files are compared to scanned chromes. When I sell a print from my slides, I'm still surprised how little I need to do to them once they're scanned, before I print them or send them off to the print shop (depends on size required). Film is still amazing. I don't think that you can get 9 stops, as was previously suggested, by the high-contrast Fuji chromes, but you definitely get the color, contrast, and sharpness (assuming you're using top-quality glass) that you want. You can only get that from the RAW files post processing.

 

[tdesanto]

Don't bother with Aperture...

Adobe Lightroom makes the workflow between PS and Illustrator seamless... And the prints are amazing... http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/

On a different path I just picked up this beauty... Not my pic of the camera off the web... Can't wait to use it...

What a beauty. The TLR cameras have always intrigued me, not to mention the lure of medium format. I serisouly, seriously considered moving into the medium format, now that a ton of used stuff is cheap on ebay and the fact that I have my own film processor that can handle anything from APS to 6x7 medium format. The main issue for me was the fact that the chemicals are harder to come by and shipping usually costs more than the actual product due to the fact that they're considered hazardous materials. I was also thinking about either the Pentax 6x7 or the Mamiya systems. Talk about viewfinder real estate--damn, those are freakin' huge compared to 35mm or digital SLR's. Easy to compose and when you take into account the benefit of today's chrome films--that's a ton of Megapixels...nothing that digital can even touch for probably the next 3-5 years.

For me though, it was a very tough decision. A lot of money would need to be spent, even on just one Mamiya body and a few lenses, film backs, etc. Then there was the Nikon 4000/5000 scanner instead of my dedicated 35mm Minolta Dimage 5400dpi elite. So, it was about a $6k schwing and I just wasn't ready to do that for a format that has it's years numbered (not days, but still years).

Funny though, all that consideration of investment, time to learn the new equipment, etc. almost goes away when you look at the negatives or the slides you can capture with such equipment. You don't even need a loupe, for a preview scan anyway, since the film is so huge. Makes you wonder what it must have been like back in the day to shoot with 4x5" or 8x10" view cameras.:drool:

 

[Desertdude]

Offroader5 outlines it well... Having just bought the 30D for desertgirls birthday, it is an amazing camera. I can't keep my hands off it

The 30D and good glass will get you in the game, with a little less pain. As your thing develops revenue, sell the 30D body (keep the glass) and move up.

If you get a 5D before the 30D, its just gonna piss off all of us. :shakin:

 

[sinuhexavier]

Funny though, all that consideration of investment, time to learn the new equipment, etc. almost goes away when you look at the negatives or the slides you can capture with such equipment. You don't even need a loupe, for a preview scan anyway, since the film is so huge. Makes you wonder what it must have been like back in the day to shoot with 4x5" or 8x10" view cameras.:drool:

Yeah it's funny because I had the Mamiya RZ 67 for many years and sold it a little while back. Just last month I started scanning all my medium format images and just fell in love with it all over again... I think I will stay on the route of TRL's and maybe get a nice Hassi, nothing new, nothing automatic, just good old fashioned medium format picture taking.

 

[Mlachica]

external hard drives

Mark,

I bought a 320gb Western Digital external HD not too long ago. It's really nice and easy to use. I'd actually like to get two. I store all of my photos on it and would like to back it up on a secondary external, this way it's backed up and my notebook HD isn't stuffed with music and photos.

Just for example, I bought a rebel xt (6mp) in march of 05 and upgraded in august of 06 to the 20d (8mp) and I have about 30gig's in pictures.

 

[Robthebrit]

I would not trust any HD, get a network storage unit, they are cheap and you can get 4Tbyte units (3TByte when running in a RAID5 config). RAID5 will allow a drive to fail and you will not lose any data. Replace the failed drive and everything will be restored.

I do not know why you were having problems with 4gig cards, there is nothing special about them as far as addressing is concerned. 4gb cards do use FAT32 while cards up to and including 2gb use FAT16 as the file system. There is far less standard across devices when using FAT32 and some devices don't support it at all. Windows should be able to read any FAT32 device without any problems. Mac OSX has a few issues with FAT32 but nothing that should prevent anything from working.

Rob

 

[bigreen505]

Mark,

You're welcome to give me a call if you want to talk through the digital stuff. I think having a digital P&S is really more important than a DSLR since it will always be with you, which you want for little one pics.

I have to admit that Darren's setup of a digital Rebel and a few L zoom lenses and a nice 4x5 setup makes a lot of sense for overland travel. So does something like a Mamiya 7ii. Film is not dead and digital is still expensive. Terrbytes are the new gigabytes. Almost any DSLR you can buy is capable of decent image quality, but the user experience can be a very different story.

Also, if you are looking at shelling out the cash for a 5D, it is worth considering Leica too.

 

[Desertdude]

A word on HD and backing up. A good rule to follow; your not backed up unless you have backed up three times and store in three separate locations. The first back up on DVD is a good plan.

750 gig drives are cheap - you can set yourself up with a 4 bay removable E-sata drive for not too much. 3 Gb/s through put.

Back up remove and store

Sonnet Fusion 4

Sonnet E-sata card

I am even able to use my MacBookPro with this system with this Express card

 

[eugene]

One thing with backups is you should do multiple and on multiple media types. I use both a hdd in a usb case and dvd. Espically people running MS Windows, its too easy for the drive to corrupt either through an OS error or virus. Its also to easy for a dvd burn to fail or a disc to fail to read after sitting for a while.
Also don't waste the $ on an external hard drive or usb hard drive. buy your own USB enclosure and stick your own drive in it. half of those pre made usb drives have some odd spaced connector so you can't replace the drive inside and the other half have a cheapie drive. Buy your own drive and stick in a the box so you know what your getting. I've went that route for our DVD burner now too since we both have laptops, I didn't feel like paying $150 each for a laptop dvd burner so I bought a $40 dvd burner and a $20 USB case and stuck it inside and we can share it between the two. Then the laptops have a dvd read only drive so I can test my burns in a different drive than what burned it to make sure they can read.
Plus when you buy your own usb enclosures you get to choose the features you want. mine for example have the power supply inside so there is no big transformer lying around, just the normal computer power type.
Bought our first digicam in 2000 and now have two more. Have nearly 7000 pictures since then plus a couple hundred old ones I scanned.