digital start up

[geoff]

i have used leica and eos 1 equipment and am now moving over to digital. wehat equipment do i need other than a digital camera9 I.e. computer storage etc

[JDArt]

Start one piece at a time and acquire equipment only as you need it. Obviously you have a computer.

Get a camera and a 4 GB memory card to start.

[dc2]

I would prefere to have a couple of 2 GB cards or or 4 1GB cards depending on the camera ,
that way you have not got all your eggs in one basket so to speak.
Have you deided on what camera your getting?

[Rumpole]

JDart is right. *Only buy when the need arises - assuming you are not doing it as a profession. *Otherwise, you will end up with lots of things people telling you you need it but you actually do not. *You will also find out the more you learn, the more you are going to buy...

From your current equipment list, you must be at least a serious photographer. *However, digital photography is a completely different ballgame. *There is so much to learn even with your vast experience in film photography. *Also it is a more expensive way of taking photographs, at least from a serious amateur's perspective.

Enjoy

Cheers
KH

[Max@Home]

Originally Posted by geoff

i have used leica and eos 1 equipment and am now moving over to digital. wehat equipment do i need other than a digital camera9 I.e. computer storage etc

Hi Geoff,

First, a 'Welcome onboard the Camel'.

You state that you used Canon EOS and Leica equipment, but you did not inform us whether you still own something, lenses, flashes, the likes...

But you are posting in the Canon forum, so obviously you still have a little confidence in this brand )

If you still own any Canon EF original lenses: they will all work on all digital bodies Canon has produced.

Should you consider a fullframe-camera (EOS 5D, EOS 1Ds-Mk-2) then there wouldn't be any need to buy other lenses other than to upgrade either in quality or in versatility/range.

Should you consider a '1.6x or a 1.3x crop' body (EOS D30, D60, 10D, 20D, 30D, 300D, 350D, 1D-Mk-2-N) then you would 'loose your wide-angle', and depending on how important that is to you, you could consider several options to 'fill the void at the bottom'.

All Canon EX flashes will also all work on all digital bodies, the other series (EZ etc) do not all coöperate as well, but are mostly useable in manual mode, for detailed information om what they do and don't do, see http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-f...eossystemflash.

So like JDArt suggested: to start you only need a camerabody (and lens?) and one large/two smaller memory-card(s).

The latter describes IMHO another great challenge for converting-to-digital shooters: you have to think out and plan a sort of 'digital workflow' ahead, otherwise you will find yourself swimming if not downing in a sea of digital picture-files.

What I mean to say is: go through the digital workflow process step by step, think of the various ways to deal with each step, and choose the alternative that best suits your personality/style/circumstances.

This process IMHO starts already in-camera before you have triggered one shot: with the choise 'do I upgrade my camerafirmware to the 'latest and the greatest' or do I rely on 'never change a winning team?' 'do I shoot JPG or RAW' (see another good thread about this subject here: http://www.photocamel.com/index.php/topic,9061.0.html) etc...

For depending on the latter choice is the speed with which you 'burn' harddisk-space, and how heavy you use/burden your other resources: processorspeed and memory.

After the shots have actually been taken, next comes the download/transfer to PC: do you hook up the camera with the supplied cable to your computer, or would you feel more confident getting the card out and put it in a dedicated internal or external cardreader? And do you use the supplied software or...??

Where are you going to store the files, to what foldername/structure of subfolder-by-camera/by-date/by-event etc... ?

But again, as JDArt suggested: buy a camera and the tools to do all this 'the Canon way' will be supplied with your camera (-that is, still asssuming that it is a Canon).

So happy shooting, and return if more detailed questions arise, there is a bunch of great minds sharing their opinions/thoughts/ideas for free over here )

...and I hope I contributed a bit to that, or at least *my* €0.02 worth...

My kindest regards,

Max@Home

[CI Photography]

Originally Posted by dc2

I would prefere to have a couple of 2 GB cards or or 4 1GB cards depending on the camera ,
that way you have not got all your eggs in one basket so to speak.
Have you decided on what camera your getting?

I agree. I talked to a guy that took a vacation and wanted to try to keep every shot on a 4G card shooting in jpg. Well when he got back home to load his shots on his computer, his card crashed. NO SHOTS OF HIS TRIP. I was told this before I went digital. I know it's not likely to happen, but just to be safe I don't shoot on anything bigger than a 2g card, even shooting raw.


Joe

[FocusingOnFlorida]

I would prefere to have a couple of 2 GB cards or or 4 1GB cards depending on the camera ,
that way you have not got all your eggs in one basket so to speak.
Have you deided on what camera your getting?

I agree and good point. JD has another. Only buy what you plan to use and need. It is easy to get caught up.