A few ?'s about the Canon EOS 10D for a new buyer

Hi all,

After thinking along the lines these last few months of buying a Canon G3, then
G5 digital camera we are finally in a position to purchase something.

Well, after my wife said the other night "Why don't we get one of these?",
pointing to the 10D I thought why not? She wasn't that worried about the extra
$'s. So looks like a good thing.

Anyways, so I haven't paid too much attention to this camera & its threads. One
by Admiral in the bigpond group after he got his way back when, had sort of
stuck in my mind but.

So a few ?'s that are probably very obvious to most people but leaving me a bit
miffed still:

The price as listed by most in the $2500-$3200 range list an identical boxed
package. Reading thru the info I am confused to whether a lense is included or
not? Yes, I understand that all these list them as 'body only', but why, even
the Canon site, show the product fitted with a lense?

So if no lense in the box, what is a good lense to purchase at the same time?
And expected price? I can understand that this is a system that handles many
different sort of lenses, however, giving that our level of photography
experience is not great there is not much need to be given a list containing
several 'must-have' lenses for several different, very-specific categories.

So is there a 'general-purpose' lense that will do a good job of most
circumstances?

Over the last few days I have visited the following sites, in no particular
order:

www.camerahouse.com.au
camera.centre.net.au
www.digitalcity.net.au
www.dirtcheapcameras.com.au
www.canon.com.au

I checked out ebay.com.au, but only saw a couple of 'buy in Aust, ship from
Hong Kong' sellers. Having read a bit in here it seems like these situations
are best avoided? A warranty honoured/supported by Canon Australia would be
part of the buying decision.

Any other sites worth looking at for the 'online shopping' experience? Or any
to avoid??

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Cheers.

 

j --

I've dealt with DirtCheap Cameras a few times and am quite happy
with their prices and response times. If you go to their homepage you'll
see an ad for the forthcoming Canon 300D at an estimated $1800,
including an 18-55 lens. The 300D compares very closely with
the 10D. Have a look at
http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/camera/specification/compare/9-437-23-12.html

mm

 

if your experience is 'not great'....wouldn't you be better offer with a
cheaper consumer product to learn of?

 

Canon themselves don't, as far as I know, do a 10D package that has a lens
included however there is nothing to stop a dealer from creating their own
bundle/package deal.

a) So it looks like a camera?
b) Because they forgot to take photos of the body only? ;-)

I really don't know ... I see how it can be confusing/misleading to the
unsuspecting buyer though.

The G3 and G5 that you were looking at cover an equivalent focal length of
35-140. If you are happy with this range the "EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM"
is a good lens with a good range for reasonable $$$. Because of the 1.6x
FOV crop the 28-135 lens works out to equivalent 45-216. 44 isn't really
great if you want a wide field of view, but wide angles mean bigger $$ if
you need 'em, on the plus side you get a longer telephoto. The 28-135 sells
for $822 on dirtcheapcameras.com.

The 24-70 f2.8L is a wonderful lens which will give you something wider at
the short end, but the dollars are up there with the cost of the actual
camera. (DCC: $2497.35)

Perhaps someone else can give some pros and cons of the more economical
standard zooms like the 'EF 28-105mm f/4-5.6 USM' (DCC: $298.58) or 'EF
24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 USM' (DCC: $699)

Unfortunately with the 10D the 1.6x FOV crop multiplies the effective focal
length or 'zoom' of lenses. The 1.6x makes obtaining the wide angle of
around ~28mm, economically available on film bodies quite a hit to the
wallet for digital. A general purpose "standard lens" is normally around
the 28-90 range.

I have only experienced and read good things about dirtcheapcameras. Not on
the sales side, but well worth a visit is: www.dpreview.com for reviews and
user opinions on your prospective digi-cam purchase.

Hope some info was useful to you.

If you think you would like an affordable wide angle and you don't need all
the functions of the 10D you might like to have a look at the EOS 300D which
is available with a 18-55 lens (equivalent: 29-88). The 300D is pegged to
ship 'soon'. Just thought I'd add another option to aid the confusion.

Regards, Ken

 

For the simple fact that a product shot of a camera looks nicer with
a lens attached than with a big hole in the front

No, there is certainly no lens in the box. Even if you buy it with a
lens, it will come as a seperate box just as though you'd bought it
seperately.

Well, for this you need to tell us more about what you like to
shoot. There are many, many lenses and many that could be
recommended depending on what you want to shoot. Also, are you more
concerned about price or quality?

Well, that varies a lot so you just have to look around for the best
price.

Maybe the 28-135. This gives you a good zoom range and is an OK
consumer lens. It is also stabilised. It's a bit more expensive than
others that are available for this reason.

You can get the 28-105 but this is a cheaper quality lens.

If you dont mind changing lenses, then the 50mm f/1.8 is very sharp,
fast and cheap.

It's hard to recommend something without knowing what kind of shots
you're interested in and how much you're expecting to pay.

Never tested it myself, but I've heard reports that canon will
honour the warranty. You can still pay to have them fixed if all
else fails.

All of the above ones are fine.

 

Yes, I'd recommend this rather than a 10D if you're new to slrs and
if you can wait.

 

[skip]

You may also have a look at EF28-200/3.5-5.6 USM. I have had it for 2
years,
and for what it is it's a great lens. A bit bulky, but gives quite a lot of
flexibility in terms of range it provides.

If you're interested to see what the resolution on this lens is like, shoot
me
an email, I'll give you a link to a couple of full-size 6mpx snapshots of
the
Melbourne CBD taken from 31st floor (admittedly, through dirty glass
window)

SY,

 

Its going to be at least a $5K investment ( with a usable lens or two)
and then if your not willing to spend many hours playing ( experimenting )
with the features of the 10D and then post processing images in
photoshop then you may well be very disappointed with the shots you
get when using auto mode.

General purpose lens would be the 28-135 IS

Buying from an AUS shop is your only option for AUS warranty.

You could always get the G(whatever) and then wait a couple of years
for them to develop their image sensor / in camera processing
technology a bit more


dave.l

 

Thanks for the informative feedback people. The talk about the lenses is great,
gives me a clearer path of where to from here.

Cheers.

 

I just got a 10D. I had a 24mm 2.8 perviously, and got the cheapo (from
dirtcheap) 50mm 1.8. I plan to get another 6 grands worth of lenses over the
next few months. Its a great camera, Ive only had it since monday and the
clarity is impressive from the two primes I have. If you want to be serious
about taking photos, and cant justify the price of a 1D or 1Ds, then 10D
would be the way to go. Im sure most will agree its fairly close to a pro
camera, and for anyone bar sports photographers or those needing a 12mp res,
its a good camera. youll grow into it, rather than out of it. the amount of
possibilities compared to a consumer digicam are amazing, like the fairly
noisefree ISO settings and the usual SLR features. it just makes things
easier and more efficient. If you have the cash, I'd go for it, but you want
to do it jsutice by buying quality lenses. getting the cheap midranges and
zooms after spending 3 grand on the body will jsut be irritating.

anyway, who can tell i love the 10D

 

Others here may disagree but I can only relate my own experiences in
digital. Check out the review of the 300d at www.dpreview.com which is
close to the 10d in a cheaper body . It also has a new lens especially
made for the 300d which is a 'general purpose lens' plus the 'F E'
line is also compatible. It is more prudent to go for the digital slr
than a high - end prosumer camera because , believe me , you will soon
want to upgrade once you catch the bug.When you try to sell your old
camera you will find that you will be lucky to get half what you paid
for it. Though this can now be said of film cameras nowadays.
eric phillips

 

One thing to remember about digital - still a long way to go to catch
up with film for quality prints.

Of course this may not worry you at all.

(Not trolling - just from my experience).

 

Hmmm.. I don't know if I agree with that ... certainly in the 8x10 prints
that I have here I don't think you can differentiate between film & digital
...

although I may not have a very good eye for that stuff )

 

digital

I have a big ???? on that one too, as the digital 30x20 inch prints that I
have an my wall look way better than the 35mm film ones beside them.

 

I guess the question is how was the 35mm film printed. Was it scanned and then
printed? If so, how was it scanned? We sometimes forget that this additional
step is a big part of producing a print (assuming that it was scanned, here, btw
. Otherwise, what type of film was it printed off? It's one of the great
advantages of digital that the file you have out of the camera is exactly the
same as the one sitting on your hard disk.

 

Fuji 100 Neg traditionally printed.