Your personal experiances with Canon Digital cameras....

[MRCPhoto]

Hello, up until this point, I've been a film traditionalist although it has always HAD TO BE CANON! I am a pro, but am looking to hear about experiances from photographers in the digital realm. I'm going to puchase a digital and right now am trying to research time. Some of the info is a little more time consuming and confusing than I thought it would be.
I'm looking for a digital Canon that can take shots to be enlarged up to an 11 X 14 without pixalization (is that the right word?). I've been trying to research the 10D(?) and the 1D? experiance wise, speed wise, ease wise, cost wise.
Your input and experiance would be most appreciated by me.
Thank you
MRCPhoto

[Jesper]

To start with, I'm not a pro.

I started in the digital world with a film scanner (Minolta Scan Dual III). I was using my EOS 30 (the non-US name of the Elan 7E). I got good results with the scanner, but it was always a lot of work - ofcourse I had to have my film developed first and then scan it. Making a good, high-resolution scan is a lot of work - first, the film has to be as clean as possible and should have as few scratches etc. as possible, then it must carefully be mounted in the frame for the scanner, and scanning at the highest resolution takes time (with the scanner I have between 5 and 10 minutes for one frame). After scanning, it's necessary to do post-processing: cloning out dust and scratches in Photoshop. If you have a lot of images, scanning and post-processing takes a LOT of time!

So a few months later I bought the 10D. Working with the 10D is so much easier and faster than scanning that I have used my EOS 30 and the scanner only a few times since I got the 10D. You can view the image immediately on the camera and judge the exposure by the histogram. Downloading hundreds of images from a memory card to the computer takes at most a few minutes. For publishing on the web, I only need to spend a few minutes on post-processing each image. And images from the 10D are super clean - with scanned film, you always see film grain, even with the most fine-grained films such as Fuji Provia 100F which I used to use a lot.

So, I never want to go back to film!

You can easily make high-quality 11x14 and larger prints from images from the 10D. To make really large and good quality prints, it's important to carefully resize your image to the desired print size.

Currently I'm experimenting with panoramas and other images created by stitching together multiple images from my 10D. It's actually quite easy to do, and you can create super high resolution images that way. See, for example, Max Lyons' gallery (http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/) (he's using a D60).

[sGu]

I'm not a pro, but i am a 10D owner, you will be able to get your pictures enlarged to 11x14 without losing much quality, but as a pro(as you mentioned), I think you should take a look at 1Ds or at least 1D Mark II.

There is never an easy way in, as technology advances, operating them doesn't get any simpler, but once you get used to it, everything will be natural.

Good things in life take time :)

[CyberDyneSystems]

Image quality-wise.. the 10D or even the entry level Digital Rebel will easily offer a fantastic print at 11X14.. (i PRINT 10d FILES AT 11x17 AND 13x19 REGULARLY) ... (damn caps lock!!! sorry)

Anyway.. the diffrence between the pro level bodies and the 10D/and Rebel is a lot more about function, speed, and features than it is about image quality.. as the aforementioned "consumer" cams do very well.

What you would need to look at is speed,. and features Vs. price.

The 10D.. a great camera for a pro that does not demand EOS 1V-HS level performance.. is priced around $1,300.00 these days.

The jump to the pro level cameras is significant.. with a 1D MkII @ $4,500.00 being the "inexpensive" pro model :shock:


Your Mantra of "HAS TO BE CANON" Definately is the correct one where digital is concerned... Canon remains a significant few steps ahead of Nikon pretty consistantly.