Which Camera to Buy? Advice for Photographers

[Andy Resnick]

Good point- cameras may not come with a card, or the included card is too small to be useful. Some cameras have dual slots and can let you simultaneously record RAW to one and JPG to the other. I have a card reader, and on more than one occasion I've gone on my merry way, got all excited about getting the *perfect* shot, only to find out I left the card in the reader.

 

[Andre]

About card reading, I notice that putting the card directly in the computer reads much faster than connecting the camera, but Andy highlights the problem with that - "forgetting". Also, forgetting is a big one with the DSLR's I've used so far. So, you work on a tripod in studio conditions, with approriate settings, like ISO 100, and shutter in time lapse or delay. So, after being ready the camera goes off. Then a day later, you want to take a sudden snapshot - now!. Camera on - push button - beeb...beeb...beeb...beeb eight seconds to go before the click . Why oh why do the camera manufactures think that this setting should be memorized.

 

[Borek]

Then a day later, you want to take a sudden snapshot - now!. Camera on - push button - beeb...beeb...beeb...beeb eight seconds to go before the click . Why oh why do the camera manufactures think that this setting should be memorized.

Agreed, that's one of my favs I was trying to take a picture of a woodpecker yesterday, two days ago I was taking pictures of a prism and a critical angle. Exactly the combination you have described.

At least some cameras (1000D) are not limited to 10 sec, they have also 2 sec setting.

 

[Borek]

I just received Andy's document - WOW.

There will be a problem - there is a limit to the length of the post (something like 20k characters), so document will have to be split. That may help to add links to material - first post can be just a TOC with links to next posts in the thread.

More later.

 

[Borek]

In my experience Irfan View shows raws fast enough to allow efficient browsing.

Correction. Irfan View doesn't read CR2 raws shot with EOS 7D, it shows just a sad excuse of 160x120 preview. To my surprise DPP 3.6.1.0 doesn't read them either. I am starting to understand why Andre wanted to save both raw and small jpg.

 

[Andre]

Oh yes I'm very happy with that, at 8 frames per second, seeing the wave rolling towards you, you start shooting a second early only want that single shot with the action:

and before you know it your 8GB card is full. So download only the small jpgs to the computer each maybe 0.5mb, select those maybe 10 pix in total, and only download those CR2's raws, each around 20-30mb. Also try to open a folder with 500 or so CR2's with DPP, well after diner it's ready.

 

[Borek]

Correction to correction: Irfan View 4.28 with new plugins loads and displays new raw format.