Digital SLR users unite!

[sapiendut]

I'm a newbie in using dSLR, please share your tips and tricks to take better piccies in general especially taking piccies at WDW.

Please also list your equipment, not to show off, but so we can all understand where we're coming from.

My equipment list (I'm not including non-walkaround peripherals)

Canon dRebel w/ battery grip
Sigma 18-125mm f/5.6 lens
Sigma EX UV0 filter
Manfrotto low-end tripod with ball-head and quick-mount.
Lexar 40x 512 Gb media

again, the above is not for show off (what show off? those are all lowest-end stuff for dSLR )

 

[iwaseeyore]

Canon Digital Rebel
Tamron 28-300 Zoom
Canon 420 Speedlite Flash
Lexar 1gb Ultra CF card and at least three 512 cards
A borrowed monopod

 

[sapiendut]

Have you ever tried one of those CF-to-HDD thingie-magigie (PhotoBank)?

something like this:
http://web.mymediagear.com/Default.aspx?tabid=88

I'm thinking of buying one but I don't know how reliable it is.

Also, what is your favourite setting for fireworks? Mine is 2 sec shutter, f8, focus infinity. Or sometimes 1 sec shutter, f5.6, focus infinity.

 

[Unofficial Fan]

Anyone care to do a DSLR for Dummies explanation? I'm guessing Digital Single Lens Reflex, but what does that mean exactly - it does both film and digital? Thanks!

 

[sapiendut]

it's a digicam that looks and works like 35mm SLR. It comes (usually) with sensor chip 4 times the size of the best point-and-shoot digicams which yields better high ISO settings. They allow you to interchange the lens as well.

For example 200 ISO setting on Olympus C7000 is actually noisier than a dSLR at 800 ISO (2 stops better)

 

[jstbcuz]

Nikon D70
Promaster 28-300
256 MB compact flash card 40x

 

[WendyKris]

Canon 20d
Canon 18-55 lens
Canon 70-300 USM lens
2x 256 CF cards

Spent 4 full days out of a 12 day trip two weeks ago at AK alone. Got some fabulous pics......I found that if I arrived at opening and went right to Asia, I had the whole place to myself. Outstanding.

I filled 3 CD's with pic's from all the parks. What a blast!

 

[sapiendut]

WendyKris, how do you like the diamond-shaped AF points on the 20D? I still haven't get the hang of it (but then again I tend to use just the centre AF point then recompose).

Also, how's the 70-300 USM? I still don't have a walkaround zoom yet. My L lens (albeit the cheapo kind, 70-200 f4, bought used) attracts too much attention as a walkaround lens.

 

[WendyKris]

You know, I got the 20d about 2 weeks before my last trip, so I really hadn't had any quality time with it. Basically, it was take it to Disney and figure it out! My old film SLR was a Pentax, totally manual, no AF points at all, so I had nothing to compare them too. I did realize fairly quickly that with 7 AF points (or is it 9?), that I had to be very careful when focusing with the autofocus. I took some very lovely shots of bushes and branches right in front of me, while the gorillas went about their out of focus business in the background.

I will say that I got some outstanding pics with very sharp focus that really didn't need any editing.

As for the 70-300 zoom, I liked it a lot. It's only about 5 inches at 70mm, and doesn't weigh all that much, about a pound. My old Pentax lenses weighed about 3 pounds. I think during my trip, that lens was on my camera 90% of the time.

I'm not sure what your lens factor is, but the 20d has a 1.6 factor, so my 70mm is acutally almost a 90mm. Great at the other end, because I get almost 420mm at the long end.

I did find myself at places like Epcot and MK, using my 18-55, only because I wanted to take more landscape type pics. From the train station roof at MK, I could not get the whole Main St area in the picture with the 70mm.

 

[sapiendut]

300D (dRebel/KISS) is the lowest end of the lowest end dSLR on the market. It also uses 1.6 crop factor (APS-C) CMOS sensor.

WRT getting 'nice' pics of the foreground although the intention is to focus on something on the background, I always use centre AF only (habit from 35mm SLR days). Let the camera focus lock on the object I want, then without releasing the half-pressed shutter button, I recompose the frame and fully press the button to take the snap shot.

 

[Kenswing]

Nikon D70
18-70mm lens
28-80mm lens
70-300mm lens
1G compact flash

Wife bought it for me as a Christmas present to take to WDW. I have until December to figure out how to use it.

 

[Brina]

I got the Nikon D70 before going to China to adopt my daughter in fall of 2004. I have been shooting with a Nikon N90 for years. In auto mode, there was essentially no difference, and it took fabulous photos. Thus far I have only used the standard Nikkor 18-70 ED lens that somes with the camera. I upgraded to a 1G professional level card (stores about 500 pics in standard mode and 350 in high resolution mode - which I rarely used).

 

[2infinityandbeyond]

Can anyone recommend a very compact monopod or tripod, something I can take to the parks witout it being too bulky?

 

[sapiendut]

SLIK just released a carbon-fibre tripod. It's VERY light and sturdy. Not cheap though. For light-weight tripod, especially if you're using a cheapo dSLR like mone that doesn't have mirror-lock function, the vibration from the mirror-slap alone can make the picture blurry. Also if you're taking pics of fireworks, the vibration from the fireworks explosion can also make the picture blurry.

As far as monopod goes, I personally find it useless other than for handycam work.

 

[sapiendut]

here's the link for the SLIK carbon fibre tripod.

http://www.slik.com/carbon/e/4906752100974-e.html

 

[sapiendut]

here's the link for the SLIK carbon fibre tripod.

http://www.slik.com/carbon/e/4906752100974-e.html