The first shot you should take with your new dig cam!

[oja]

I wish someone had told me this. The first shot should be full frame of a
white card or sheet of paper. This is your reference shot for a very near
perfectly clean sensor. View it on a nice large computer monitor. Every 2
months or so, take another shot and compare to the zero shot. Believe me,
you'll know when your sensors' dirty. Checking back to my old pictures
and looking at clear sky shots, I found my 20d was dirty in 2 months and
I'm careful when changing lenses. My local camera tech lady said she couldn't clean it so off to Canon. I've been told that digi2 sensor builds up
an electrostatic charge that attracts dust and what not like a magnet

This advice is worth what it cost you :D

[stupot]

do auto levels on the original reference shot:) you'll prob get a shock!

[prep]

Right in priciple, but the details are a bit off.

Set up a small light source a few M away from the body, and take several shots. This gives you the beginning of a set of flat fields you can use to monitor your sensor and correct images. BTW, you will need to use RAW for this, and extract the R, G, and B channels without interpolation.

Then doing the same with your lenses will give you set of flats for correcting fall-off and vignetting for each apature and focus setting.

[muscleflex]

i thought the first shot should always be of a 'duck'?

[Kadath]

Or a cat!

[SWPhotoImaging]

i thought the first shot should always be of a 'duck'?
Or a cat!

Nope, the box the gear came in!

[Dchemist]

Your spouse!

[Doom1701e]

Your spouse!

Yup, thats what mine was (almost spouse...getting married next June)

[IanD]

i thought the first shot should always be of a 'duck'?
Listen to this man, he knows what he is talking about.:):):):):):):)

[Goran Katic]

I think the first picture should be your happy face and in the background angry face of your partner.

[GyRob]

a duck first :) i rocket blow everytime im going on a shoot.
Rob.