What camera do I buy? / general gear talk

Does it happen across more than one lens ? Might just be the motor in one lens is busted.

I just bought the f/1.8 50mm Canon lens which I'd hope would be working okay. Obviously at high f-numbers it's going to be harder to get things in focus but still.

Edit: realised that wasn't very clear. Yes, happens on several lenses, including my new-ish one ^

at high f-numbers it's going to be harder to get things in focus

This does not make any sense.
Your 450D will stop down the aperture just before the picture is taken, so it doesn't matter if you (or the camera) sets f1.8 or f22
(we're talking about autofocus lenses, right? The finder does not get darker, as you change aperture, right?)

Right, I see, didn't know that. The view in the finder stays the same brightness, yes.

What do I do?

Just take blurry pictures and tell people it's "art".

If you shoot in black and white you can claim it's are-bure-bokeh

Example: I set the AF to the central point so that it would focus at the cassette. Red "I'm in focus now" dot appears. As you can see it's come up about half-way along the chain instead. In fact I think in general it tends to focus too close.

Your 450D will stop down the aperture just before the picture is taken, so it doesn't matter if you (or the camera) sets f1.8 or f22

I discovered this when trying to take photographs through a chain link fence in bright sunshine. Looked great through the viewfinder, no fence evident- operate shutter, fence!

A moment of confusion followed.

Set the AF microadjustment in the camera settings to back focus all the time. Experiment until it’s pretty accurate

Been reading about that. I don't think it's an option on a 450d?

This guy offers a bit of insight https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/31460122 I don't think it's worth sending this camera off to be serviced, right? It's 10 years old...

Probably not, you can get the body for 80 quid or something. Maybe time to upgrade? a 600d or something perhaps

You can get something that was deemed professional from that era for not much more.

Yeah, I'd like to upgrade at some point. The 600D doesn't have microfocus adjust either though.

In general only models with one (and sometimes two) digits have user accessible AFMA. The 50D and 70D have it but the 60D and the 40D and older models do not. (Exceptions: The 1D Mark II and 1Ds Mark II did not have it, but all 1-series bodies released since those two include it. The original 5D did not include the feature, but subsequent 5-series bodies have it.) None of the xx0D/Rebel and xx00D/Rebel series bodies include the feature.

Sounds like a 70d might be a good option - anyone got some experience with one in here? There's some on eBay for <£200. Can't afford that now but maybe in a few months.

In the meantime I have discovered that I never really knew how the Live View mode worked and that there's an option in the settings to have it focus based on the image from the sensor rather than whatever AF system it uses normally. So that should be completely unaffected by the issue and achieve focus as well as me on MF with 10x zoom. The downside is that it's slow as balls - it's going to take me at minimum a few seconds for each picture. That's fine for now as I pretty much never take any picture of anything that moves...

See attached - it focused okay. Different lens but you get the idea.

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The original 7D is also a great camera. Full size with good features and still a cropped sensor. It’s quite fast too

Sounds like a 70d might be a good option - anyone got some experience with one in here? There's some on eBay for <£200. Can't afford that now but maybe in a few months.

In the mean time if you've got EF (not EF-S) lenses you can pick up an EOS film body (if you don't already have one) for not very much at all. I picked up a 300x with kit lens for about £30

You've got quite a few hot pixels too in the bottom left of the frame, dunno if your camera can map them out, Canon can if you can't.

@Ste_S hmm, interesting idea. The reason I'm worrying about it now is because I want to get some pictures of bike bits that I'm selling - so not really worth the cost of the film in that case. But maybe I could get a film camera for the rest of the time when I'm out walking around or whatever. How much does it cost to get the film developed/scanned/etc. these days? I work in a university and I reckon there's probably a scanner somewhere around that would do the job...

@Dogs I turned off the noise cancellation thing because I do a bit of (bad) astrophotography occasionally. The noise cancellation is just an annoyance then. Might fix the hot pixels, not sure.

fence!

Yea, this happens to me on the rare occasions I don't shoot with a SLR but a rangefinder and am shooting through a fence
: ]

How weather resistant are Fuji WR lenses actually?
I had the XF23 WR on me just now riding in the rain and the focus ring feels like it's grinding small rocks. Sounds horrible too

Edit: Well, I yolo'd and held the lens just a sec under running water. Smooth again.

Might be called pixel mapping (it is in my camera).

New lens day!

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have you tested the weather sealing by running it under the tap yet?

I think the F2 is WR, the F1.4 isn’t - I’m not using my tap to discover if I have remembered correctly though!

Filmdev is the cheapest at the moment (for C41 at least) and they’re at £6 a roll for dev and a medium sized scan. Getting your own scanner certainly helps, and that brings your down to £3ish for dev only

..you'd have to invest a few hundred for a half-decent scanner first though, and even then it's still very very time consuming and also a faff to get decent results.

My point being that although I do have a decent (35mm) scanner and quite some experience with the process - if I could get proper Noritsu / Frontier scans and dev for £6 I definitely wouldn't bother fucking around myself.
Here it's more like £15 for dev and (proper, albeit small) scans.

I had the XF16 f/1.4 WR for a short time this week and it's huge! It's really sharp though, even wide open.
Wish Fuji would release a f/2 or f/2.8 WR for less moneyz. The f/1.4 is just too bulky and way too expensive to use it on the street.

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