Canon DSLRs: on the edge of reason

[articulate]

Seeking advice. :)

I'm currently using a 35mm Canon exclusively with fine-grained slide film and scanning these with a Canon FS4000 recently purchased from Jeff. This combination works beautifully, and is far superior to my previous set up. I can get great files for magazines now.

However, I'm dabbling with the idea of adding a DSLR to my "fleet" - I can be working with two bodies for redundancy and flexibility. Cool, right?

The need:
A DSLR body capable of 8 mega pixels or more for magazine work. As I understand it, 8 MP is the bare minimum. I don't need a body and lens combo, unless it sweetens the pot significantly by providing a focal length I don't have or macro.

The conflict:
1. I thought a 5D would be primo. 1:1 sensor keeps me happy in the wide angle department. I love shooting at 19mm with the film camera. Camera body is currently out of my budget.

2. 20D. Popular choice, it seems. 8.2 MP. 1.6 "croppage" on the sensor. In the budget.

3. Rebel XTi. This is where things get funny. 10.1 MP capactiy, same sensor as the 20D, and about $50 less (retail).

4. 30D. No idea what sets this apart from the 20D; price point a few hundred more than the 20D.


That 10.1 MP on the Rebel unit gets me the most excited - constantly working at the bare minimum end of file requirements (with an 8.2 MP) makes me concerned. But what makes the Rebel series less money than the 20D and 30D? Construction? Processor? Other? And is it worth worrying about?

For those who do professional level work with digital cameras . . . are the 20D and 30D inferior, adequate, or excellent? Superior to the XTi with 10.1 MP? If so, in what ways and features?

Quality is at hand here. Bang-for-buck value is a close second. I work for a living like most mortals. :cow:

[adventureduo]

I can't comment on specifics cause im not a pro camera user... but.. we were out on a run with a 20D and the Rebel. One of the guys shoots for a magazine with the 20D and another shoots for nobody with his Rebel. They both swapped. and we could not tell a difference side by side taking the exact same pics. The price point of the Rebel is what blew me away. I believe its the consumer version of the "D"

Sorry i can't tell you more.. but maybe Wanderer could. He was there with the rebel. My mag buddy isn't on this board.

[jeffryscott]

I've shot magazine covers with a 3.2 mega pixel point and shoot ... be careful of the mega-pixel race.

Anyway, the 20D is far superior to that point and shoot and any of the choices you mentioned have more than enough quality (as do you might I say) to shoot for magazines. The big difference among the cameras you are looking at is body construction and control. The 20D or 30D are going to be better constructed than the Rebel.

BUT, you are buying a computer now, not so much a camera. These things are going to be "outdated" within a couple of years no matter which model you get. The Rebel would be fine. But I think you'd be happier spending a few extra bucks to get the 20 or 30D (too bad I don't have one to sell:shakin: ) as the construction and feature set are probably a little better suited to your use/skills.

[Dirty Harry]

Anyway, the 20D is far superior to that point and shoot and any of the choices you mentioned have more than enough quality (as do you might I say) to shoot for magazines. The big difference among the cameras you are looking at is body construction and control. The 20D or 30D are going to be better constructed than the Rebel.

Agreed on the construction. I don't know the differences between the 20D and 30D, but I thought that the 30D was supposed to be less expensive than the 20D. I remember hearing that as a selling point previously.

[Scott Brady]

main advantage of the 30D is LCD size, which is a big improvement.

Find a new / used 30D and you are set.

Go to Tempe Camera and talk with those guys. They are a local business that I try to support. They are also Overland Journal lovers ;-)

[Offroader5]

After just doing all this research myself...I can say that a couple differences are:
-The XTi has a plastic casing, where the 30d has a magnesium casing (as long as you buy the USA version and not the "PC body" version), so you gain a more durable casing IMO.
-The body of the XTi is also smaller than the 30d. The 30d is a bit heavier.
-The 30d has a slightly larger image format at the sensor.
-The XTi uses a pentamirror in the viewfinder where the 30d uses a pentaprism...what this does, I am not real sure...but I believe the prism is going to be more clear.
-The 30d has a wider range of ISO speeds and twice the shutter speed than the XTi.
-The 30d also has a faster continuous shooting rate at 5 fps vs. the 3 fps of the XTi, and also much better burst ratings.

I just today ended up buying the 30d.

Hope that helps :)

[sinuhexavier]

Do the 5D.

I had a 1DS Mark II that died on me the day before a large shoot for Volvo. I couldn't find one to rent, so I went and bought the 5D. It is simply an amazing camera for the money. Yes the 1:1 ratio is nice for wide angle, but you also get the depth of field of a true 35mm focal plane. If you go to my website the picture on the home page is from my first day of shooting. www.sinuhexavier.com

After Canon replaced the 1DS, I sold it bought another lens some parts for the truck, etc. I still love the 5D and have since bought another as a backup. Shooting in .raw a tiff processed at full size ends up being 72 megs and is just simply amazing.

If you plan at all to sell your images to a stock agency hold out for the 5D and keep scanning your chrome. I still shoot Provia 100 for some commercial clients because you simply can't come close with digital. 6 stops for digital as opposed to 9 stops of range with film... But that's not what we are discussing...

[Ursidae69]

If you can swing it, get the full frame. The 1.6 crop on my Rebel XT is a bummer. Still though, it's my opinion that most of photography is a combination of glass and photographer skill.

[adventureduo]

If you go to my website the picture on the home page is from my first day of shooting. www.sinuhexavier.com


Wow, truly amazing pics man.

[Dirty Harry]

Wow, truly amazing pics man.

x10000000000000000000000000000000000.

[goodtimes]

I have heard that the 30D has twice the shutter life of the 20D.

As John mentioned, the DRebel XTi has a small body compared to the others. Personally, I don't like it because I have to hold onto it with my finger tips instead of my hand.


Something to keep in mind with regards to a camera becoming "outdated" :

Technology may advance, but your current gear does not become less advanced.

For example: I bought a DRebel back in 2004. The XTi still did not exist. Since 6.3 megapixels combined with a few select lenses and the camera features I have still meet my needs...there is no reason for me to upgrade the camera body, regardless of how far technology has advanced. Until my needs change, my gear is fine. There is no need to keep upgrading your gear every time some new farkle shows up.

All that said...the 5D is pretty sweet.:)

[Robthebrit]

The 5D is a good camera, I really like mine. That new 1D MKIII is pretty special too but a little more expensive than the 5.

Rob

[jeffryscott]

The 5D is a good camera, I really like mine. That new 1D MKIII is pretty special too but a little more expensive than the 5.

Rob

It is very sweet, but the Canon rep told me the other day there is an 8 month wait if you aren't already waiting.:)

[sinuhexavier]

It is very sweet, but the Canon rep told me the other day there is an 8 month wait if you aren't already waiting.:)

Samy's has them in stock...
http://www.samys.com/product_detail.php?item=3502

Calumet also has them in stock...
http://www.calumetphoto.com/ctl?ac.ui.pn=checkout.Checkout

And last but certainly not least EBay is listing 242 5D's for sale...

[jeffryscott]

Samy's has them in stock...
http://www.samys.com/product_detail.php?item=3502

Calumet also has them in stock...
http://www.calumetphoto.com/ctl?ac.ui.pn=checkout.Checkout

And last but certainly not least EBay is listing 242 5D's for sale...

The 8 month wait is for the Mark III, not 5D.

[sinuhexavier]

Thought that was a strange post...:)

[articulate]

It's the 1D Mark III that's 8 months out ... just fyi.

Okay! Thanks for the excellent tips, fellas. Tempe Camera sees my transparencies before I do since they do the processing for me, and I'll be there tomorrow picking up a batch. I thought I'd gauge some (excellent) Canon users before talking with Tempe Camera. They just put up a new website too: www.tempecamera.biz (http://www.tempecamera.biz/)

I was almost sold on the 30D for a minute until Sinuhe said this:

Do the 5D.

I had a 1DS Mark II that died on me the day before a large shoot for Volvo. I couldn't find one to rent, so I went and bought the 5D. It is simply an amazing camera for the money. Yes the 1:1 ratio is nice for wide angle, but you also get the depth of field of a true 35mm focal plane . . . hold out for the 5D and keep scanning your chrome.

What a bad influence! ;) Great information, thank you.
With such a glowing report for the 5D, I'll need to sleep on this for a few days. Perhaps drive me to sell a few more photos and articles before making the purchase.

Regarding the mega pixel game: I read an article somewhere about this as well, but I've forgotten the details. Can we elaborate on that a little? IIRC, it has to do with the quality of the pixels having more value than the absolute quantity of pixels(?) So those 8.2 available with the 30D and 20D are plenty adequate?

Regarding this thing being a computer, and Sinuhe's body failure: has anyone else had a DSLR die? If so, what was the service life? All things have a shelf life of course, but how long did your DSLR last and what was the failure? I mean in terms of usage, not the simple amount of time you owned the camera. Maybe that's a massive can-o-worms, but I'm curious.

Thanks for all the information. I'm in debt to you masters.

[sinuhexavier]

Mine died and was replaced at 18,500 +/- shutter clicks. About 10months old. I fried something I can't recall exactly what it was... It was electronic though, not mechanical. It was my first dslr and I lost myself in the shooting more composing less trap. I used up a lot of megapixels...

As far as the quality I am not super technical, but it has something to do with bit depth shooting in .raw. I did find this http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-raw-files.shtml

"When a digital camera makes an exposure the imaging chip (whether it's CCD or CMOS) records the amount of light that has hit each pixel, or photo site. This is recorded as a voltage level. The camera's analog to digital circuitry now changes this analog voltage signal into a digital representation. Depending on the camera's circuitry either 12 or 14 bits of data are recorded. Incidentally, if the camera records 12 bits of data then each pixel can handle 4,096 brightness levels (2^12), and if 14 bit then it can record 16,384 different brightness levels (2^14). (To my knowledge no current imaging chip records a true 16 bits worth of data).

Of course what happens after you've taken the photograph depends on whether you have the camera set to save images to the memory card as raw files or JPGs.

If you've saved the file in raw mode when it is subsequently loaded into a raw conversion program and then saved to a TIFF or .PSD format file it can be exported in 16 bit mode. The 12 or 14 bits recorded by the camera are then spread over the full 16 bit workspace. If you've saved the file in-camera as a JPG than it is converted by the camera's software to 8 bit mode and you will only ever have 256 brightness levels to work with."

The other bonus to the 5D option is it's light weight . By that I mean, I can take the battery pack off and lose substantial weight and bulk unlike the 1DS.

[DaveInDenver]

Regarding this thing being a computer, and Sinuhe's body failure: has anyone else had a DSLR die? If so, what was the service life? All things have a shelf life of course, but how long did your DSLR last and what was the failure? I mean in terms of usage, not the simple amount of time you owned the camera. Maybe that's a massive can-o-worms, but I'm curious.

His failure was the shutter, which isn't a digital body uniqueness. Lots of cameras have shutter failures. Whether or not a digital SLR shutter is more prone to failure or not really seems a wash in comparison, since the fundamental design is the same on all SLRs, film or digital. The question is really how well the particular shutter is made. There are more electronics in a digital SLR, but it's not like a F5 or F6 (sorry, I only have some idea about Nikons) is a simple mechanical camera or anything. And even then mechanical or electro-mechanical shutters fail. Just last year I had to have the shutter curtains replaced on one of my cameras. OK, yeah, it was a 41 year old body, but they do eventually wear out.

[bigreen505]

I've shot magazine covers with a 3.2 mega pixel point and shoot ... be careful of the mega-pixel race.

Ever notice that actual working pros tend to dole out advice like that? There is a lot more to image quality than megapixels.

I personally would rule out the Rebel purely on ergonomics. The 20D and 30D are both good tools, but you will never get really attached to it. The 5D takes gorgeous pictures and is one of the few digital cameras that feel like a good film camera. Considering that you are probably going to be keeping if for a while and you enjoy shooting slides, that would get my vote. The functional differences between the 30D and 20D are pretty small, but important to some.

[jeffryscott]

Marketing is what drives the megapixel race, not quality ... basically, as sensor size stays the same, the pixels get smaller (this is point and shoots mostly, as DSLRS have much more space to play with) and because the individual pixels are smaller, they gather less light. So, as ISO goes up, the quality of the photo actually goes down and becomes noisier.

And as far as my comment on these being computers - that is what they are. You aren't going to be using an EOS 1DMkIIn 50 years from now as you can easily use a Leica M3. As with computers, a 5-year-old computer still works, but does it do what you need it to. Same with digital cameras, it may work, but how does the quality compare to the newer generation? As a working pro, you are at a disadvantage if the quality of your work is dependant on outdated technology. Each generation of digital camera (again, I'm talking professional grade) gets X-times better. We are still in the relative infancy of pro digital and it is getting so much better with every generation.

Oh, and Mark, get the 5D, you know it is what you want ... oh, and NEED. All those baby photos you are soon to be taking REQUIRE full frame :wings:

[Mlachica]

All those baby photos you are soon to be taking REQUIRE full frame :wings:

I'm by no means a pro or selling to magazines but I've got a 2.5yr old and a 4.5 month old and the 5D would be great to have for shots of the little one.

I think if you can hold out a little while for the 5D, do it. If not get the 30D for the larger lcd. I have the 20D and it works great, I love it. But everytime I play with a 30D I'm lusting after the larger lcd :shakin:

[pskhaat]

Thread jacking: I don't like the fact that Canon requires their own software drivers to access the images. Why can't they follow a simple standard and make the images available over a USB filesystem like most other players?

[jeffryscott]

Thread jacking: I don't like the fact that Canon requires their own software drivers to access the images. Why can't they follow a simple standard and make the images available over a USB filesystem like most other players?

Hmmm, I just plug the camera in, OSX sees it and I can download it via image capture, iPhoto or Aperture. For RAW images, you can use their software, or Aperture or Photoshop.

[bigreen505]

Thread jacking: I don't like the fact that Canon requires their own software drivers to access the images. Why can't they follow a simple standard and make the images available over a USB filesystem like most other players?

Not quite sure what you mean. Aside from Leica and a couple others that support the dng standard, Canon plays much nicer than most.

[sinuhexavier]

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...

[pskhaat]

On both my Linux system and Windows I had to install extra drivers in order for the device to be recognized. Just for JPEG encoded images, not `raw' (still awaiting a decent standard, though can't figure out why PPM wouldn't work).

[bigreen505]

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...

At the risk of a hijack, what about Lightroom do you prefer to capture 1 or Bibble? I seem to be heading in the same direction, just curious on your thoughts. For me I have become accustomed to the interface so I am faster on it.

[sinuhexavier]

I have never used Bibble, but just by looking at the website it seems to lack the slick user interfaces of the others. Capture one is great if you are shooting tethered, but I still felt that the processing and management of those raw images wasn't as smooth as it could be.

I jumped on Aperture as soon as it came out... What I didn't like about Aperture was the redundancy in files and the fact that it changed the original .raw file in developing. Lightroom preserves the original file, but saves the commands used to process the image. You can directly interface with PhotoShop and Illustrator... It is one of the easiest out of the box programs I have ever used...

I hope that answers your questions...

[tdesanto]

Mark,

I'm a Nikon user, so I cannot offer advice on specific Canon bodies; however, I do have a lot of experience with Nikon’s pro film bodies and some of their DSLR’s. I would like to recommend that you visit your local camera shop and actually put your hands on each of these that you're thinking about.

Also, there are several factors that go into the different prices for the different bodies that don’t have anything to do with pixel count, such as:

1. AF system (fast, slow, ability to track moving objects, # and type of AF sensors, etc.)

2. Body construction--aluminum, magnesium alloy, polycarbonate, etc.

3. Weather sealing (usually the cheaper bodies don't have much or any of this); the more expensive ones will probably have either some or a lot.

4. Also look at the control layout. How many and what types of controls are easily reached? Usually with the cheaper, smaller, more consumer-oriented bodies, these are hidden deep in menus instead of being right there when you need it most. Controls that I like being handy are, DOF preview, ISO, WB, Mode (AP, SP, M), and frame advance selection (single or continuous).

5. Don't discount the whole cropping thing too. That is, consider saving for the 5D. When shooting landscapes, I absolutely cannot stand the wide angle lenses that are available for DSLR's with APS sized sensors. When shooting wildlife and sports, though, I love the fact that my 300mm lens is now a 450mm. There's still no comparison to using my Nikkor 20mm f/2.8 and my F5 with Velvia. If you use prime lenses already, then consider holding out until you can afford a camera with a full-sized sensor. The wide angle zooms made for digital still don’t compare to the wide angle prime lenses in terms of controlling flare and chromatic aberration. When I’ve gone back and compared some shots I’ve taken with my 20mm pointed directly into the rising sun, I’m amazed at how well that lens can handle just about anything I throw at it. Compare that to the 12-24 mm Nikkor—nowhere near the image quality of their prime lenses. Maybe the Canon lenses are better at handling these issues, but I suspect that they are similar.

6. Consider what type of photography you do now and any possible types of shooting you may do in the future. That is, you may not need a fast autofocus system or the ability to lock on and track moving subjects. Or, you may not care about how easy it is to quickly change ISO speed or switch from aperture priority to manual, etc. I think the main point I’m trying to make is look at the whole picture (no pun intended) and narrow down what’s most important to you.

7. The great thing about digital is the immediate feedback you get while in the field, but when I was shooting chromes a lot, if I was ever unsure about whether I nailed the exposure, I simply took a few more frames…no big deal.

8. Almost forgot—viewfinder. A lot of the cheaper bodies, especially the DSLR’s, have very small viewfinders. Not as easy to compose images as with their film-based siblings. This is something that I’ve wrestled with ever since I switched over. Even my D200 still doesn’t compare to my F5 in this respect. Again, I don’t have any first hand experience with the Canon lineup, but I suspect that the smaller bodies also have smaller viewfinders.

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.

[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]

Mark,

I bought a 320gb Western Digital external HD (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7643099&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat107700050005&id=1134698030541) 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 (http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Search.cfm?Criteria=Seagate%20SATA%203%2E5%20Hard% 20Drive%20Internal&sort=a) 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 (http://www.sonnettech.com/product/fusion400quad.html)

Sonnet E-sata card (http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_e4p.html)

I am even able to use my MacBookPro with this system with this Express card (http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_express34.html)

[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.