Emailing with the 50D?

Int; I am ON it, thanks to you and the other guys. I am so grateful for the help. What a fine forum, for the canoneers. I had a couple of Nikon FM's way back when that Iused with a Sigma 105 macro for artifact shots of slave tags, confederate buttons, bottles, and the like, and I had thought to get the D90 for the big change-over, but when I got my hands on the Canon, it just felt better.

EG; you talkin' some goood pickers and singers. I knew Grisman 40 years ago, when he was coming down to Union Grove with Winnie Winston and The New York Ramblers. They won the band comp there a couple of years running and there were some great bands there, too. Not bad for a bunch of city-billies, as Pete Seeger puts it.

You into Bryan Sutton? He's pretty much the bull-goose for acoustic flatpicking these days. Unbelievable. And, of course, Tony Rice is the old maestro. I've got a cut of him pickin' and singin' "John Hardy" with the Bluegrass Album band: Doyle Lawson, Jerry Douglas, J.D. Crowe (J.D.'s the man!) and Vassar Clements and Bobby Hicks. They count it down:

"1! 2! 3!!!" and it's like a coiled spring being released. Goosebump stuff, if you like hard-driving bg.

Here's Tony and Douglas, Sam Bush, and Blaine Sprouse, on fiddle, gettin' "9 pound hammer". Merle Haggard's smilin' a mile wide:

http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=_u964a0f38s

Dangit! Merle TRAVIS. There go the synapses again; gettin' into another barfight in my head.

Int, how do you get in burst mode? I've got the directions, on page 89 of the book, but using the quick-dial, they just move me back and forth between the H and the self-timer.

I'm option overwhelmed.

H is burst mode

I believe it cycles between one-shot, burst (3FPS), high speed burst (6.5FPS), and then the two self-timer options. I just checked it on my 40D so it should be the same on the 50D.
Make sure you're in either Av, Tv, P, or Manual. I believe in any other mode, certain options are disabled.

tanbark,

Just so you'll know, the 100-400 with a 1.4x TC will not cooperate with AF. The combo reports f/6.3 with the zoom fully retracted and f/8 fully zoomed, and the camera (all excep the 1D series) require f/5.6 for AF.

I've heard that there are ways of circumventing the reporting, although in doing so you risk having your AF be unreliable/inaccurate.

Anyway, that's the scoop.

EG, you dood it. That was the key; putting it in the right mode. But I swear I can't find that little instruction in the book. Thanks much.

And thank YOU, Tony, for the post. And some lens review people are dishonest or misinformed, because I've read at least two reviews of that lens in which they say that while the 2X extender won't autofocus, the 1.4 will. Appreciate the heads up.

Looking at what I'm getting with the little 28-135 "kit" lens, I'm not at all sure that the bare 100-400 won't get me to any part of the field Iwant to cover, particularly since they don't seem to mind people shooting from the sidelines at the high school and college games around here. If you LOOK like a photog, then....

tanbark,

If you have the opportunity to rent, you might try out a 70-200 f/2.8 as well as the 100-400 and compare. You are likely to get better results with the 70-200 withing its range, and it will take TCs as well. Something to consider. If you can move along the sidelines and go for the closer action, the 70-200 (bare) will have better focus and delivers very crisp images (a well as be able to handle lower light shooting with a constant f/2.8).

As far as the information you've seen about the 100-400 and AF working with a 1.4x TC, well, the only cameras that can do that are the 1D series -- their AF goes to f/8. So they may be thinking of that rather than the fact that the rest of our bodies only go to f/5.6. Hopefully, people won't make the mistake of buying in to misinformation.

Tony, thanks again. That about the 70-200 sounds very sensible. I'll have to consider that when I get the jings together.

How do you guys feel about extended warranties? I still have a few days in which to decide if want the Best Buy warranty, which is for 4 years at $300. That seems high to me, but I don't know what the rates are now, for camera repair, so maybe it isn't.

I know the digital stuff is...tenderer...than the old film cameras, but I do take care of my tools. Has the 50D been out long enough to talk about how reliable and durable it is?

Personally - IMHO - I believe that for GOOD products, extended warranties are a waste of money and just icing on the store's balance sheets.

The profit on those things is HOOOOGE for those people. Usually I don't buy them. I don't particularly baby my gear, but I certainly don't abuse the equipment and always store and carry them well, using good common sense in their use.

I agree that $300 is high. As for camera repair - there is a local pro repair shop and anything that walks in the door and gets disassembled and inspected/cleaned starts at around $85. Back when I was still using my Hasselblads, the film magazines ran about $105 for clean, adjust, lub and new film seels.

tanbark wrote in post #7883197
......How do you guys feel about extended warranties? I still have a few days in which to decide if want the Best Buy warranty, which is for 4 years at $300. That seems high to me, but I don't know what the rates are now, for camera repair, so maybe it isn't.

I know the digital stuff is...tenderer...than the old film cameras, but I do take care of my tools. Has the 50D been out long enough to talk about how reliable and durable it is?

tanbark wrote in post #7883197
Tony, thanks again. That about the 70-200 sounds very sensible. I'll have to consider that when I get the jings together.

How do you guys feel about extended warranties? I still have a few days in which to decide if want the Best Buy warranty, which is for 4 years at $300. That seems high to me, but I don't know what the rates are now, for camera repair, so maybe it isn't.

I know the digital stuff is...tenderer...than the old film cameras, but I do take care of my tools. Has the 50D been out long enough to talk about how reliable and durable it is?

That reminds me of the simpsons quote when Mo was sticking crayons up homer's nose in order to make him stupid again. After making progressively more stupid comments everytime a crayon was inserted, the scene culminated with the line "Extended warranty, how can I lose!".

So, here it is: extended warranties never make financial sense. When you look at the number of failures within the time period of your extended warranty (only after a standard warranty would expire) you see that it's essentially a sucker's bet. You will be charged ridiculous amounts of money for something that will likely never happen to you. So, at $300 dollars, you're talking about a quarter of the (new) price of the camera. Do you really think that more than 1 in 4 people will have a defect in their camera that the warranty would cover? Of course, by the time that comes into effect (what's the standard? a year?) your camera will be worth much less than that, so for that bet to make sense, you'd expect there to be a 1/3 chance your camera is going to suddenly implode right after the warrenty expires. If that happened, do you think Canon would still be in business?

And, personally, I have never bought an extended warranty for anything in my entire life (and I have been offered quite a few). I've also never run into a situation where an extended warranty would have been useful.

Saw this at Adorama, for the 70-200 Canon zoom:

http://www.adorama.com​/CA70200AFLK.html

The price was the lowest I've seen, and there are some goodies with it. I'm wondering about the discrepancy between their price and that of some of the other places.

Best Buy has it at nearly $1800. Amazon, for around $1600 I believe.

Is the lens in the Adorama ad gray market, without a USA warranty?