-=Still love your 20D/30D? Congregate!

eight6 wrote in post #12044406
20D + 50 1.8, Vivitar 383 bounced

My friend, Kyra.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/eight6flix/5537​824478/
Kyra by eight6flix, on Flickr

mastertech01 wrote in post #11827287
Dang, 2 days since the last post.. love must be fading for these older classics (30D was still the latest greatest just 4 years ago.)

Well anyway I purchased one again after all these years and since owning a 1D MK III I do find one weakness is low light focus performance. Now I am talking very low light now, where you really need the focus assist beam to be able to focus at all. Only problem is Canon decided that little feature wasnt necessary on its own and put it in the onboard flash and that little bugger strobes like an electrical storm. I can imagine if you arent allowed to have a flash in some areas this would be also included. But you might get by with the low light levels of a focus beam on an external flash or P&S camera. Or you might just want to use such a beam at home because that flashing strobe is just plain annoying.

I would then recommend that you purchase an ST-E2 and set your custom functions to allow focus assist and set for flash not to fire and shoot in manual mode. This allows full use of the focus beam without metering issues in the shot. I dont have such a device however and a couple years ago I built my own focus assist lamp from a bad 420EX flash I had purchased off the forum. When I recieved it the head was broke off from the body and screws missing from the prior owner trying to fix it himself... and well since we dont have a negative feedback forum and I purchased it cheaply I just decided to save it for a parts flash.

Then I purchased a 5D which is pretty wimpy in low light focusing. I then took the parts and built this focus assist for it. When I got this 30D yesterday and tried focus in very low light even with a 1.4 aperture it just hunted its little head off. I popped up the onboard flash and it was like favoom! Lightning! LOL So I grabbed my little 270EX and opps, no good, no focus assist lamp built in. Then I rememberd my little creation and popped it on and that bad boy focuses in the darkest environment and without blinding mankind.

So I thought I would share a couple pics of it in case someone with a broken flash head on a flash you would have probably thrown out or never used again would like to see that it can be salvaged for something. It can also save the expense of an ST-E2 if you have no intentions of having an array of flashes that need it, and/or you are on a tight budget.

I simply removed the head and internal wiring to the flash head and capped off the top. 4 batteries in this thing will last years! Though heavier and bulkier than ST-E2 it is much smaller and lighter than a full sized flash, especially 580EXII. Anyway this is a little contribution to this thread that was going to sleep...

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marubozo wrote in post #12328181
I guess I can finally contribute a photo now that I've had a chance to take some photos with the 20D. It actually performs even better than I expected.