kja

My Dorable at the beach the other morning with the Canon SD1200...

That was a rockin series - so glad you entered!! Congratulations!!!

Off the top of my head: Super small and well within your budget. Canon SD1200. I have one of these and adore it to little bits. You can get a feel for images by heading to my bloggedy blog -> Kristin's News <- and checking out October, November & December archives as most of the images there (unless noted) are taken with it. Great battery life, tiny enough to go anywhere, great photos, reasonably good images even at higher ISOs. No manual controls on this one but there are plenty of scene modes and options to get good images in a nice variety of lighting and scenes. Larger and maybe at the edge of budget - Canon G series. The G11 is the newest one, I think, so maybe look for a second hand G9 or G10. Excellent cameras with the capability to let you learn manual controls if you want to later. Midsized and a range of budgets - Canon A series. Some have manual controls, some don't. I adore the Canon compact range because they all do very very well. Panasonic has a couple of gems in its line-up but they may be at the upper end of your budget. I'm not a fan of the Olympus range (unfortunately, coz I love the idea of them) or the Nikon range. You will be able to make your dollars work harder for you if you are willing to order from the US. All of my compact cameras come from overseas as I have never found an Aussie retailer who could compete with the prices.

A budget will help narrow the field. I'm guessing by your request for a "basic" camera you are thinking more of a compact camera than a dslr, is this correct? Is size an issue for you?

LOL to the 100 lovin' It's a fantastic lens, no doubt. But there are a couple of other contenders. Canon's 60mm macro rocks. And I find I reach for it more often than the 100. The 60 is super small and light so it's easy to go anywhere. It makes a fabulous lens for portraits, it has nice fast focus for moving things and it's macro abilities are awesome. This is one sharp lens. The downside to this lens is that to gt 1:1 you need to get up close and personal. With the 100 you get more working distance so can stay further away from skittish creatures. The downside, other than price but get the version I and save heaps o' cash, is that this thing is heavy and it's hard to hand hold it sometimes. You need very good light or your shutter speed will drop so far hand holding becomes an issue. This lens has a steeper learning curve than the 60mm. Sigma makes a very good 50mm macro that is budget friendly while still producing great results. And here's one that no one thinks about - Tokina's 35 macro. This thing is RAZOR sharp. It's a very much overlooked piece of glass, especially at $320! I really like the different feel of macro photos shot with this lens. It, too, does 1:1 but like the 60 you have to get close (5.5" or 14cms for 1:1) ... but even not at 1:1 this is a super cool lens.

That's awesomeness!!! Crossing fingers & toes here for you!

Even if I didn't have a 1DIII, I would feel the same way The 7D is a whole lotta camera that I think few would be disappointed in. But it's kinda high priced for many, I think.

I hate when I have a problem with something and then take it in and the fix it guys can't find it. SO frustrating!! I hope you, the retailer and Canon can work out something. From your posts it sounds to me like it's the retailer who made the out of warranty promise, not Canon, so I'd totally be on their butts about it. Good luck!!

Talk to the retailer directly and explain what happened and what you were told. Always get "exceptions" to any warranty in writing because often the retailer will tell you what you want to hear without having any authority to make decisions on behalf of the manufacturer. If they won't put it in writing, you know they aren't giving you accurate information. It really sucks when a piece of gear isn't doing what it should do I feel for ya. Talk to the retailer first, you might find that they have a solution. Also make sure that all of your contacts are clean, sometimes they can be downright finicky for no real reason and cleaning them, even if you don't think they need it, can magically fix the problem.

What's your budget? A used 40D is an awesome camera and can be had for a great price. the 50D is an excellent camera and will run you a bit more. The 7D if budget is no concern. Personally, though the 5DII is also a great camera, I have no intention of putting one in my own bag

Multireader's are good. I'd have at least two cards and three if you can afford it.

Yup, what she said. While the speed of the card IN your camera can come into play with continuous shooting, I have not noticed any missed shots in action sequences when using my cheapo cards at all. Most of the newer cards are just fine - I doubt you'll need the Ducati versions (which are way more expensive). Card speed will also factor when you download to your computer. Again, I don't notice. I stick em in the card reader and let it do its thing. Speed is not essential to me on download. If it is to you, then spend some money on one of the higher end card readers but honestly unless you are shooting multiple cards and want to download them in bulk, basic card readers should be fine. It's all about your needs. The more you require from your cards and card readers, the more you need to spend. FWIW I'm using a $12 card reader that I bought like 4 years ago :thumbsup:

CF is a type of memory card (as are XD, SD etc). Each camera takes a specific type so just check the specs and it will tell you. SanDisk have an excellent reputation as does Lexar. I use both of those - both their cheap lines and their expensive lines. I also use and love Transcend brand - and I only have their cheap versions. I have a few Kingston cards for my compact cameras and they, too, work just fine. Although the speed of a card may be an issue for some high quantity or fast shooting users, imho, most people don't really get that much benefit by paying the premium for the really fast versions.

The challenge is to shoot a scene or subject specifically to process as a square or a panaroma, not just to crop something you already have. Cropping something you already have can be a good starting place to get you thinking about this composition, but the challenge itself is to shoot images specifically for the crops. Does that make sense?

Nah, that was the OLD plan! I like this newer one better. Kirislin & other DOLers should come have a play, too, I reckon

You should totally bring it to my birthday celebration (such as it may be) so I can play with it!!

I'm looking forward to finding time to get out with my bag. I have to say, I wasn't WOWed by the fuschia - it's far more sedate than it looks on the net. There's no doubt it's very nice, don't get me wrong! I just didn't have my socks blown off by it. But I appear to be in the distinct minority on that score. :D

Hehehe, little white dog channels evil demon! Great capture!

I've been tempted to buy one to play with, but never get around to it. I don't mind the effect when it's used well but there are far more images out there where I don't think the TS offers much to enhance the photo really. I think it's tough to learn when the effect is essential to get the image right but I'm sure it's great fun to play with. I can see one in my future, especially if I ever decide I want to shoot buildings and the like - they are an essential piece of gear for architecture etc. From what I've seen of the people I know using it for portraits/people & general scenery they get awfully excited about using it for the first six months or so and then start to pull back and eventually come to realise that it was a little hokey after all. Maybe not *bad* hokey, but a little hokey...sometimes verging into the realm of selective colour :D

I believe that the Kelly Moore bags are on sale this week for $199 so it's a pretty good deal again. There are a couple of colours that are sold out, including the fuschia. I am trying to find the time/motivation to get a solid review up on mine...maybe this weekend! And ShootSac is on sale for THREE days only. This is a bag you'd use when you don't want to put your camera in it but do want to carry a bunch of lenses or accessories for quick access on the go. I have one of these and the build quality is good and it's comfortable. Looks like she's bringing out a new bag that will also allow a camera body - it's being launched this week but there's a video of it on her site (which I've just watched and shows nothing...it's totally poxy). So many choices!

I did a whole heap of 1920s-1950s family photos and slides a few years back. It was not a fun project - extremely time consuming. Running them through the scanner once did no harm. I would highly recommend that you simply find a pro lab that will do it for you, coz it sucked big weenies after about the 20th photo/slide LOL If you are going to do it yourself, get online and do your research on how to get the best results - it's not as simple as whacking them in the scanner and pressing the button. You need to make sure to get the settings correct or your scanned image won't be as high as quality as you will need for archiving. If these images are worth doing, they're worth doing right, imho. And it's totally a project I'd only ever want to do once LOL (Even though now that I've done even more research there are things I'd do differently this time around, I ain't gonna do 'em again!)

I think your face is beautiful, actually

New toy!!! Woohooo!! Looks like you're lovin' it already

Very nice set! #3 for me is the standout. Lovely use of depth of field and the focus on kittehs nose is just right! The framing is spot on, imho, well done!!

I hope you don't mind but I had a play with your image, huga. I'll remove it if I've overstepped. I've used your sshhhhh, shot to try to illustrate more about cropping square. I think a square crop is a strong crop. It's about annihilating anything that doesn't help the frame. It's a POW crop. It's making whatever you're taking a photo of command the space. Anyhoo, here's my quick take from your original crop because I love the image and think it could be GREAT! But the original square crop imho is not striking. Again, if I've gone too far with using your image or with trying to get out what I was thinking when I suggested this challenge, I will totally remove the rework and this post. BTW the original image in this thread was really tiny so my rework is very pixelated, I hope it gets across what I wanted it to LOL