Digital Rebel Lens question

[newdamage1]

I'm getting ready to purchase my first digital SLR and Canon's new Digital Rebel is right in my price range, but I have a few questions I didn't see answers to on Canons website.

First, this EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens has part of the lens that actually sticks into mount a little bit (I'm guessing that this is the "-S" designation.) I see that it has a 1.6 indicated focal length compared to 35mm. If I understand that correctly, it would make a 100mm lens a 160mm, Correct? Also, I am looking at an additional lens (like a 70-200) could I have problems with this combo? are the regular EF mounts different? or will cause complications that I am unaware of?


Second, What kind of Compact flash should I get? I was looking at a 512 card (or even maybe a microdrive) are there certain models that are more bang for the buck? (read and write speeds)

TIA for helping to educate the uneducated. =)

Kelly

[dtrayers]

Any current EF lens will work with the D-Rebel, and you are correct that the crop factor of 1.6 effectively increases the focal length of any lens, including the kit 18-55 lens. The nice thing about the smaller sensor and the crop factor is that the camera is using the center of the image where most lenses perform better. It's at the edges you see distortion, flare and falloff.

Here's a link about CF speeds. I've tested some of these cards myself and trust the data:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6425

[CoolToolGuy]

All of the EF (EOS) lenses work on the Digital Rebel. Canon took advantage of a design feature on the DRebel that allowed them to make the kit lens a little cheaper by letting it intrude into the cavity further, but all of the other lenses will go right on.
As for CF cards, I use a 512MB as the default. At the large/fine setting, it gives about 140 shots. I have a 1GB microdrive, and I will use it as necessary. If you plan to shoot RAW you may want to consider 1GB or larger. I have chosen to go with the fastest cards I can find (Sandisk Ultra II), as I don't want to have to wait for the image to write to the card to take another shot.
My understanding is that the microdrive is about the same speed as the original Ultra (which is 40x) but the Ultra II is 60x, so they are faster than the microdrive.
Good luck, and I hope to see you here as a Drebel owner.
Have Fun

[timnelsonic]

I looked at the link you provided and noticed the Compact Flash write times were similar for all the cards. It seems there is no real speed difference between 24X and 40X, which suggests the camera's write speed is the gating factor, not the card's. If this is true, one could potentially save money by buying a slower card, as long as it is faster than the camera. Does this make sense or am I missing something?

[vvizard]

timnelsonic wrote:
I looked at the link you provided and noticed the Compact Flash write times were similar for all the cards. It seems there is no real speed difference between 24X and 40X, which suggests the camera's write speed is the gating factor, not the card's. If this is true, one could potentially save money by buying a slower card, as long as it is faster than the camera. Does this make sense or am I missing something?


As long as the card is able to outperform the I/O of the camera, it makes perfectly sense. As long as you've crossed that barrier, you won't gain nothing on going higher. And the idea of buying a faster card, just so that it will be faster on the next cam you buy is out of the question (unless you intend to switch _REAL_ soon), because the price you pay for ekstra speed now, will be enormous to what you will pay for the same card in let's say 2-3 years..

[dtrayers]

Though the in-camera times don't differ much, the time to PC is quite different. Check out my review of the Delkin Cardbus32 reader. I updated it to include a Sandisk Ultra II 512MB card.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=20331

With the 300D, you'll want to get a fairly large card to have room for the photos, at least 256 if you just shoot JPG, and 512 if you shoot RAW. If you get a slow card, you'll soon grow tired of the wait to transfer 500 MB of data. I recommend you make the investment in a fast card. Remember, it's a one time expense.

If you want a specific recommendation, I recently saw the same Lexar 4x 256MB card I have for $59 at CompUSA. Two of those are cheaper than one 512.

[vvizard]

I have to agree on the story about fast card-readers. Last autumn, I got fascinated by photography, and bought my first cam ever (digital). It was a 5MP cam, so the files where quite large. I got the IBM 1GB Microdrive to go with the cam, and if I shot at raw or tif, each pic would take ~ 14MB. Dumping 1GB of data from the cam's USB-1.1 interface where taking like (you guessed it) forever. I wanted a card-reader. So I wen't searching. And what did I see? _NO_ USB-2.0 card-readers was sold yet.. Of course, a lot of those USB-2.0 compatible. That's of course b*****, cause the USB-specifications are made so that all USB-1.x work on 2.x and vice-versa.

Anyway, I wanted a HIGH-SPEED USB reader (that's the _real_ USB-2.0 things (480mbps theorectically transfer)). So I held out with the slow cam transfer and waited. Then suddenly one day at my local electronics-shop in a town here in norway, the manager showed me a brand new card-reader from Sandisk. It was called the ImageMate 6 in 1. Built in brushed metal, takes most card-types (which is good, cause I also use a PDA with Secure-digital slot). It was supposed to be the first HIGH-SPEED-USB cardreader made. I loved it, so I forked over $120 for it. Haven't regreted it ever. Worked as a charm, except that my computer would completly freeze up when I tried to use a Sandisk SD from my PDA. I even tried it in windows, and the same thing happened :-P Strange, since both the reader and the card was from Sandisk. Never had a problem with other cards though. It transfer to/from my Microdrive at ~ 2.8MB/s, and from my SD-cards close to 4MB/s.

I love it, and won't sell it before I got cards capable of outperforming USB-2.0 specs =) (which probably means I'll have it for 10+ years =))

[newdamage1]

Thanks for the good info guys, Just ordered my D-Rebel this afternoon. Now I have to find a way use it so the wife doesn't see me (suppose to be a x-mas present.) =)