[Don Thompson]

I think you made the better choice in the xti over most, if not all point and shoots. You would probably like the 18x zoom, but if you buy good glass, the quality and flexiblity of the xti will be better. I bought my DSLR, the Canon 10D, over 2 years ago. Still serves my purpose well. When I outgrow it or it breaks, I will be looking for another DSLR and my lenses should still work. Now let us see some pictures.

[Don Thompson]

Before I bought my DSLR, I had a Fuji 602 and had a zoom attachment. I was very happy with it and never noticed any problem with the optics quality. My attachment lens was designed by Fuji to work with the camera. Personally, I would never use a third-party lens, at least not on a non-slr camera, although I know some who did with no complaints.

[Don Thompson]

Personally, my solution was to find the most color-accurate camera for outdoor use I could find (the D200), and then use that.
Zach

Zach, a little off topic, but I have a question regarding color accuracy, where have your read/heard that the D200 was more accurate?

Please don’t take this as confrontational, it isn’t intended to be. I have written and rewritten this and couldn’t come up with anything that didn’t come across that way.

[Don Thompson]

I echo what everone has said. In addition, what I like about this site that others don’t have, is the section on photography. Photography and fly fishing together in one place. What could be better?

I hope you continue to grow.

[Don Thompson]

I didn’t realize that there was that much difference between Nikon and Canon. I hear of people shooting 30Ds at 1600 ISO with little noise. I am able to use my 10D at 800 ISO, and if properly exposed, see little noise. With the D70 being newer, I assumed it would handle the higher ISOs.

[Don Thompson]

Personally, I always shoot in JPEG FINE, Large unless I am looking at a potential cover shot, when I will switch to RAW.Zach

I used to do that to, but after too many times of wishing that I had shot something in RAW rather than JPG, I switched to RAW full time. If you don’t need the RAW file you can convert it to JPG or TIF before you archive and discard the RAW file, but you can’t create a RAW from either of the other formats.

[Don Thompson]

I have never used the D70 (I shoot Canon), but I would think that you should be able to push the ISO to at least 800 without increasing the noise significantly. Using the example you gave (f4 & 1/60 at ISO 200), that would increase the shutter speed to 1/250, which would have helped.

[Don Thompson]

I shoot RAW almost exclusively. While there is a little more work involved, it allows you to more easily change white balance, exposure, saturation, etc. without degrading the rest of the picture. I suppose if you always get the setting correct in-camera, jpg or tif are fine. If you are like me and sometimes miss those settings, it is nice to be able to quickly and easily correct them when processing your RAW file.

There are other advantages, but these are what I consider to be the biggest advantages.

If you have Photoshop or any similar software that lets you process RAW, shoot a couple of pictures in RAW and play around with them,

[Don Thompson]

Low ISO might also have been a problem. Next time, under similar conditions (dark and overcast), you might bump the ISO up before you start to help increase your shutter speeds as much as possible. I don’t know why the flash wouldn’t have popped up. What camera are you using.

[Don Thompson]

This is like talking to myself. Goodbye.

[Don Thompson]

From the reviews I have read, this lens tends to be a little soft, especially at the 200mm end. This tends to be a characterist of most zooms, which is one of the reasons many recommend primes.

As Drifter suggested, make certain you keep the shutter speed up. A good rule of thumb is for the shutter speed to be a least 1/x, with x being the length of the lens. You should also take into account the “crop factor” of you lens, which on the 20D is 1.6x. So the 200 becomes 320mm and the shutter speed would be 1/350 or 1/400 depending on whether you have your camera set for 1/2 or 1/3 stop increments. On the 20D you can push the ISO to 800 or even 1600 if you need to in order to keep the shutter speed up. The 20D does a great job of keeping the noise level down if the picture is properly exposed.

Another thing you might try, if the subject and light allows, would be shooting with the lens stopped down a little. Many lenses are not at their best when wide open.

[Don Thompson]

Zach,

I have use EL-CO Color Labs before and been very happy. They have a special on 20×30 prints for $9.95 each. The only “catch” is you have to order 2, but they don’t even have to be the same photo. If you go to their page, they have instructions for sizing, ppi, color space, etc. I have a 20×30 in my office of our city skyline (Indianapolis), from a Canon 10D, and even up close it looks very good.

http://www.elcocolor.com/poster_special.htm

[Don Thompson]

These are nice.

While it may not have been your intent, some them (the canoe, waterfall, and island) all make me think about fishing.

[Don Thompson]

I just returned from Townsend on Saturday. We saw several bears in and around Cades Cove, all during the late afternoon/early evening. I was using a Canon 100-400 at or near 400mm. At 400mm that lens is only a 5.6. If you have something longer and faster, you will get better results.

[Don Thompson]

For email and posting to the web, I generally resize mine using Photoshop to 72 dpi (I have read that this can be almost any number, but 72 is what most use) and change the size of the picture to 800 pixels on the longest side. I then save as a jpg with a quality setting of about 7. This makes the files small enough that you can email several of them, yet retains enough quality that they still look good when viewed

[Don Thompson]

When the camera compresses the picture to save space, it discards picture data, which causes the quality of the picture to degrade. There is no way to recover the data. You may be ok if you are only going to put the pictures on the web or printing a small print. But if you want to crop the picture or print a larger print, you may not have enough data left to do so. On a trip to Italy, the price of memory today, I wouldn’t take the chance. I always have my camera set for the highest possible quality, in fact, if your camera will shoot RAW, I would recommend it, for anything more than a snapshot.

[Don Thompson]

I have two Sigma lenses. Both of them are their EX series which is supposed to be their pro line. One,
(70-200 2.8) is fantastic and I can’t say enough good things about it. The other (28-70 2.8) can be soft. It is not bad enough that I have gotten rid of it, partly because of the resale value as indicated by others. I won’t say I wouldn’t buy them again, but personally, after 2+ years with a DSLR, I now would only by Canon or Nikon (I use Canon), unless I needed something outside their line.

[Don Thompson]

I’m a “Canon” guy, so I can’t give you my thoughts on the 80-200, although I do hear good things about it. As to your question regarding having one do it all lens, I don’t think that is possible. I have a 28-70, a 70-200, and a 100-400. I really like the 70-200, but if it is the only I have with me, I always seem to need one of the others. Now there are times, when I don’t want to carry all of them, then I just have to make the best of it, but I wouldn’t want to always be limited to just one of them all the time. They all have there place. It would kind of like playing golf with just a 5 iron. I suppose it would be possible, but it would be difficult and not much fun.

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