Lense for Canon 30d

HEMI-Powered wrote:
[]
P.S. a Rebel and a 20D are not to my way of thinking comparable
for image quality, durability, or price, plus it is larger and
heavier. Size and weight were what tipped my scale from a Nikon
D70S to the Rebel, so you can imagine my surprise and dismay the
first time I came back with a CF card full of available light
images at the Henry Ford Museum shot at 800 and 1600. I just
deleted them as unusable.

Interesting - I find ISO 1600 perfectly acceptable on the Nikon D40, but
perhaps I have different standards to you...

http://www.david-taylor.myby.co.uk/2...23-0727-38.jpg

(It's a model and not a real car, and it hasn't been dusted for a while,
but much of the dust will be out of focus.)

David

Doug Freese wrote:
"Wolfgang Weisselberg" wrote in message

On the gripping hand, the 70-200 is a very good zoom.

Canon just came out with the 55-250 IS. Any idea how this compares
with the 70-200 in quality.

The 55-250 is a "white ring" lens (according to the dpreview
photo), the 70-200 is an "L" lens.

'nough said.

-Wolfgang

David J Taylor added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...

P.S. a Rebel and a 20D are not to my way of thinking
comparable for image quality, durability, or price, plus it
is larger and heavier. Size and weight were what tipped my
scale from a Nikon D70S to the Rebel, so you can imagine my
surprise and dismay the first time I came back with a CF card
full of available light images at the Henry Ford Museum shot
at 800 and 1600. I just deleted them as unusable.

Interesting - I find ISO 1600 perfectly acceptable on the
Nikon D40, but perhaps I have different standards to you...

http://www.david-taylor.myby.co.uk/2...23-0727-38.jpg

(It's a model and not a real car, and it hasn't been dusted
for a while, but much of the dust will be out of focus.)

David, I never investigated the D40 or D50, only the D70. At the
time, what I could find in the mags and on dpreview.com was that
feature-for-feature, lens quality, image processing quality, and
noise were comparable between the D70S and Rebel XT. So, I have
only one data point to go on.

I doubt that we have differing standards. It's only a wild guess
as I have zero facts, but I might opine that your D40 is better
at high ISO than a Rebel, that's all.

Now, you know me to be as balanced a reporter as I know how to
be, factual rather than emotional, never hysterical, always
pragmatic and seldom theoretical (except when it IS helpful to
understand the fundamental theories behind various aspects of any
camera whether film or digital. But, I am an admitted contrarian
around here, which is fine.

I shot one series at the HF Museum in available light and flash
at various ISO all the way to 1600, the same at the WPC museum,
and yet another small series at an outdoor car show past dusk
when the light was very low. Of course, if I didn't get a proper
AE lock and underexposed, the image was toast for a number of
reasons, but certainly the noise was exacerbated. But, I
carefully compared the flash vs. available light images of the
same car side-by-side in PSP 9 and at 800, certainly 1600, to my
60-year-old eyes with cheater reading glasses, they looked like
the paint was on top of sand, not smooth sheet metal.

As it happens, PSP since v9 has had an outstanding tool called
DCNR (Digital Camera Noise Reduction) which works equally well
for the geometrically regular patterns we call "noise" in a scan
of a photo printed in a book or magazine with a half-tone
printing process because the scanner is picking up the half-tone
dots not as dots, which would be irregular noise, but more of a
geometric pattern stemming, I think, from the angle of the half-
toning.

DCNR also has a separte control for sharpening that is far, far
superior to the usual Sharpen/Sharpen more and produces much more
realistic images than my previous favorite for sharpening,
Unsharp Mask. The latter works, but tends to give the image an
artificial look as if I'd messed up the picture when I shot it
and tried an amateurish method of fixing it.

DCNR for either noise reduction or sharpening allows the
positioning of 2,3, as many as you like sampling cross-hairs
which show up on the preview pane, i.e., the "before", as squares
that one can move around and drag the cornerss to any size
desired. Altering exactly where the multiple sampling points are
placed along with strength either does or does not provide
adequate noise reduction, and improperly used, can mangle the
foreground/background of an image by turning it all soft.
Therefore, it took a LOT of practice to learn how to do this at
all correctly. So, to my point, even though I now THINK I know
how to do noise reduction correctly whilst preserving as much
detail and sharpness as possible (noise reduction and
detail/sharpness are, of course, mutually exclusive), it take
quite a bit of effort as ISO 800, more time than I want to devote
as DCNR is very CPU intensive and even on a 2.6 gig AMD Athlon
with 4 gig of memory, it is a slow process. I HAVE managed to
"salvage" ISO 1600 images, but the amount of time is more than I
feel I can budget to any but a very small number of images.

Again, I don't know your situation nor that of any Rebel XT users
out there, how you take your pictures, and the primary subject(s)
you shoot, so we could well be talking about apples, oranges,
grapes, and pomegranets. But, again just taking a wild stab, I
have to believe your D40 is just better at this than a Rebel, or
at least MY Rebel.

And, yes, I have ALSO ran controlled tests to see the effect of 3
main set-up options: contrast, sharpness, and saturation, to see
if I could find a combination that worked well at high ISO and a
different set-up saved as one of 3 I can save, for normal ISO
100/200, but failed. So, I gave up.

I continue to read accounts from people who own the higher end
Canon DSLRs such as 20D, 30D, the big MP 5D, and others, and it
would seem that they are much more capable at shooting even all
the way to 3200.

Because of the pretty big bucks I now have invested in 3 lenses
and an 430-EX external flash, I am wed to Canon for the
foreseeable future. When I next buy one, I may have to bend in
favor of a larger, heavier camera in order to get a higher mega
pixel count for the rare occasions I want to do that, AND one
that is demonstrably better at noise.

As always, thanks for your comments and observations. I
appreciate the fact that we can have differing views on what may
seem like the same issue(s) yet avoid annoying each other. And,
have a great week, hear?!

--
HP, aka Jerry

HEMI-Powered wrote:
Wolfgang Weisselberg added these comments in the current

I think you're right, reading what follows. What /I/ meant
was that the largest aperture of ALL my Rebel lenses gets
smaller as the zoom gets more into telephoto, which wrecks
havoc with trying to do mental calculations of guide number
for manual flash.

And what I meant is that this does not happen with the EF
17-40mm f/4L USM nor with the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM.

OK, I'll just accept the fact that I am at least dense, if not
fatally stupid,

Stop being personally offended.

but I see what I claim in the manual and on the lens same as you.

I _own_ the EF 17-40mm f/4L USM.
Hence I can speak with authority that said lens has a maximum
aperture at 17mm of f/4, at 28mm of f/4 and at 40mm of f/4. Since
f/4 == f/4 == f/4, "the largest aperture [...] gets smaller as the
zoom gets more into telephoto" does *not* happen with that lens.

The same is true for all 4 of the 70-200mm Canon offers.

The same is true for the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM.

What do you suppose is so different in our two views that are so wide
apart?

I dunno. You seem to claim that the 17-40 starts at f/4 at 17mm,
but ends at f/5.6 or something at 40mm --- something that does
not happen with the very same lens I own. I cannot follow
your claim at all.

why I said I am forced to go to a higher ISO, which in turn
led me to observe that - at least for me - the Rebel XT is
pretty much useless about 400.

Having done more than one shot at ISO 3200 and 6400 (i.e.
pushed one stop) on a 20D, I wonder what makes the Rebel XT
unusable for you at 400 ...

Wolfgang, surely by now you must know that I am neither a
theorist nor any flavor of elitist, I am a consumate pragmatist.

Which is why I wonder.

And, when I see enough noise at even ISO 400, even more at 800,
and far more at 1600 - even in properly exposed images - I
conclude that the Rebel is, for ME, a POS at those ISOs.

What is that "enough noise" you claim? Are you looking at 300%
on the screen, looking for noise? Are you printing the images
out at 100x150 cm and look at a 10cm distance? Are you comparing
them to a extremely high grained ISO 6 (six) film?

What are you doing?

If you hunt for noise, you'll see it at ISO 100. You'll also see
film grain with analog film, much worse, btw, than your camera,
on an ISO by ISO comparison.

Interestingly, the month AFTER I bought my camera 20
months ago, Popular Photography did an eval of the Rebel. THEY
said that 200 was tops before noise began to be objectionable,
and THEY said that the Rebel was not designed to shoot at 800 or
1600 without a LOT of work in the digital darkroom.

And Popular Photography has rated which cameras no have no
"objectionable" noise at ISO 400 or 800?

I don't make this stuff up just to annoy you and the others, so
just write me off as a senile old fool and let it drop, OK? Thank
you.

Stop being personally offended. It gets OLD really fast.

P.S. a Rebel and a 20D are not to my way of thinking comparable
for image quality, durability, or price, plus it is larger and
heavier.

Funny that you think they are not comparable, especially when the
sensors of the 350D (aka Rebel XT) and the 20D are very
similar. And
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/CanonEOS350D/page19.asp
concludes
| As you can see there's almost no visible difference in noise levels
| between the EOS 350D and EOS 20D, our measured results (see graph
| below) show that the 350D's noise levels are very slightly higher
| between ISO 800 and 1600. Image sharpness is also virtually identical
| with a slight softening at ISO 800 and 1600 but nothing like the
| levels we have seen from other cameras.

Size and weight were what tipped my scale from a Nikon
D70S to the Rebel, so you can imagine my surprise and dismay the
first time I came back with a CF card full of available light
images at the Henry Ford Museum shot at 800 and 1600. I just
deleted them as unusable.

If you find them unusable, you will find *every* digital camera
at ISO 800 unusable. Nikon isn't better at ISO 800.

OK, you could probably pay 1.000 times the price and find a better
ISO 800, but ...

-Wolfgang

Doug Freese wrote:
"Wolfgang Weisselberg" wrote in message
Doug Freese wrote:

Canon just came out with the 55-250 IS. Any idea how this compares
with the 70-200 in quality.

The 55-250 is a "white ring" lens (according to the dpreview
photo), the 70-200 is an "L" lens.

'nough said.

I'm not familiar with the inference can you point me to the difference
or just a few words?

A "White ring" on on many (but not all) Canon consumer lenses ---
the cheapest line of lenses Canon produces. Not necessarily bad,
and depending what you want, can do the job.
Think of them as cheap plastics commuter cars for driving from
the suburbs to work at moderate speeds.

"L" stands for "Luxury". "L" lenses are the top line quality
lenses, designed for the not-so-gentle professional use. Usually
"L" lenses are weather sealed, metal built, and can double as
a club or improvised missile and go on doing their job. And of
course, they usually have more expensive elements, better optical
formulas and more expensive manufacturing to higher standards.
Think of them as WWII Jeeps or HMMWVs, able to go almost
everywhere, compared the the commuter car.


Add to that that while normal (say 30-80mm) fixed focal length
lenses are today pretty easy to produce with good optic quality
even on a budget, zooms are still a problem, especially on a
budget.


What chance has a consumer zoom with f/5.6 at the long end versus
a a 70-200 with f/4 or even f/2.8, would you say?

Of course, the worst lens is the one you don't have with you,
so if you are on a budget and don't expect to much, you'll be
happier with a 55-250 than with no lens --- but find out first if
"happier" equals "happy" for you!

-Wolfgang

HEMI-Powered wrote:
[]
David, I never investigated the D40 or D50, only the D70. At the
time, what I could find in the mags and on dpreview.com was that
feature-for-feature, lens quality, image processing quality, and
noise were comparable between the D70S and Rebel XT. So, I have
only one data point to go on.

I doubt that we have differing standards. It's only a wild guess
as I have zero facts, but I might opine that your D40 is better
at high ISO than a Rebel, that's all.

[]
I continue to read accounts from people who own the higher end
Canon DSLRs such as 20D, 30D, the big MP 5D, and others, and it
would seem that they are much more capable at shooting even all
the way to 3200.

Because of the pretty big bucks I now have invested in 3 lenses
and an 430-EX external flash, I am wed to Canon for the
foreseeable future. When I next buy one, I may have to bend in
favor of a larger, heavier camera in order to get a higher mega
pixel count for the rare occasions I want to do that, AND one
that is demonstrably better at noise.

As always, thanks for your comments and observations. I
appreciate the fact that we can have differing views on what may
seem like the same issue(s) yet avoid annoying each other. And,
have a great week, hear?!

Thanks, Jerry. It may well be that the D40 is a more modern camera, or
even that the JPEG conversion is different by default (mine is still on
the default settings). Yes, I know about PSP Digital Camera Noise
Reduction, and at time I find it most helpful.

I'm sure that the next Canon you buy will have improvements.

Yes - it's finally sunny in Edinburgh! I'm enjoying it from indoors....

Cheers,
David

Wolfgang Weisselberg added these comments in the current
discussion du jour ...

OK, I'll just accept the fact that I am at least dense, if
not fatally stupid,

Stop being personally offended.

YOU need to look at both what you say and how you say it, it may
just be that you're insulting but don't realize it, or you just
get your jollies that way. Either way, I don't care. I'm pretty
sick and tired of defending what I know to be true against people
who grab me like a rabid dog by the ankle and won't let go.

but I see what I claim in the manual and on the lens same as
you.

I _own_ the EF 17-40mm f/4L USM.
Hence I can speak with authority that said lens has a maximum
aperture at 17mm of f/4, at 28mm of f/4 and at 40mm of f/4.
Since f/4 == f/4 == f/4, "the largest aperture [...] gets
smaller as the zoom gets more into telephoto" does *not*
happen with that lens.

The same is true for all 4 of the 70-200mm Canon offers.

The same is true for the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM.

What do you suppose is so different in our two views that are
so wide apart?

I dunno. You seem to claim that the 17-40 starts at f/4 at
17mm, but ends at f/5.6 or something at 40mm --- something
that does not happen with the very same lens I own. I cannot
follow your claim at all.

why I said I am forced to go to a higher ISO, which in turn
led me to observe that - at least for me - the Rebel XT is
pretty much useless about 400.

Having done more than one shot at ISO 3200 and 6400 (i.e.
pushed one stop) on a 20D, I wonder what makes the Rebel XT
unusable for you at 400 ...

Wolfgang, surely by now you must know that I am neither a
theorist nor any flavor of elitist, I am a consumate
pragmatist.

Which is why I wonder.

And, when I see enough noise at even ISO 400, even more at
800, and far more at 1600 - even in properly exposed images
- I conclude that the Rebel is, for ME, a POS at those ISOs.

What is that "enough noise" you claim? Are you looking at
300% on the screen, looking for noise? Are you printing the
images out at 100x150 cm and look at a 10cm distance? Are you
comparing them to a extremely high grained ISO 6 (six) film?

What are you doing?

I'm equally sick and tired of describing in detail over and over
again what I do and why I do it the way I do. If you want to know
the answer to that question, reload your old headers and look for
my posts.

If you hunt for noise, you'll see it at ISO 100. You'll also
see film grain with analog film, much worse, btw, than your
camera, on an ISO by ISO comparison.

I don't "hunt" for noise at any ISO, but I am also not blind.
And, it really is of no importance what you or anyone else thinks
a Rebel can or cannot do, it is only important what /I/ think.
One more time, there is NOT one way of looking at a given issue
or one way of doing something, learn to live with it, I have.
And, give up your zealot's mentality in constantly talking to me
like I was a child, and a dumb child at that. I don't like it,
and if I talked down to you the way you do to me, you'd be
equally irate.

Interestingly, the month AFTER I bought my camera 20
months ago, Popular Photography did an eval of the Rebel.
THEY said that 200 was tops before noise began to be
objectionable, and THEY said that the Rebel was not designed
to shoot at 800 or 1600 without a LOT of work in the digital
darkroom.

And Popular Photography has rated which cameras no have no
"objectionable" noise at ISO 400 or 800?

I don't know, and I don't care! Have you suddenly gone dense? I
said I read ONE review of a Rebel XT a month after I bought mine
and THEY said it was noisy, both in the lab and in practical
application. That, combined with what my two eyes tell me is
enough for me to accept the idea that it just ain't useful at
high ISO.

I don't make this stuff up just to annoy you and the others,
so just write me off as a senile old fool and let it drop,
OK? Thank you.

Stop being personally offended. It gets OLD really fast.

This is literally going to be the LAST time I reply to you.
You've attacked me by personally insulting me and insulting my
intelligence and technical skills for a couple of years. If you
think that's getting old, then tough.

P.S. a Rebel and a 20D are not to my way of thinking
comparable for image quality, durability, or price, plus it
is larger and heavier.

Funny that you think they are not comparable, especially when
the sensors of the 350D (aka Rebel XT) and the 20D are very
similar. And
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/CanonEOS350D/page19.asp
concludes
| As you can see there's almost no visible difference in noise
| levels between the EOS 350D and EOS 20D, our measured results
| (see graph below) show that the 350D's noise levels are very
| slightly higher between ISO 800 and 1600. Image sharpness is
| also virtually identical with a slight softening at ISO 800
| and 1600 but nothing like the levels we have seen from other
| cameras.

Size and weight were what tipped my scale from a Nikon
D70S to the Rebel, so you can imagine my surprise and dismay
the first time I came back with a CF card full of available
light images at the Henry Ford Museum shot at 800 and 1600. I
just deleted them as unusable.

If you find them unusable, you will find *every* digital
camera at ISO 800 unusable. Nikon isn't better at ISO 800.

I didn't say it was. How is it that you can leap to such
incorrect conclusions based on no facts and nothing but unfounded
assumptions? As I said, the next time I buy, along with
everything else I will eval during a 10-day test drive with money
back guarantee WILL be noise.

OK, you could probably pay 1.000 times the price and find a
better ISO 800, but ...

EOT.

--
HP, aka Jerry

David J Taylor added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...

As always, thanks for your comments and observations. I
appreciate the fact that we can have differing views on what
may seem like the same issue(s) yet avoid annoying each
other. And, have a great week, hear?!

Thanks, Jerry. It may well be that the D40 is a more modern
camera, or even that the JPEG conversion is different by
default (mine is still on the default settings). Yes, I know
about PSP Digital Camera Noise Reduction, and at time I find
it most helpful.

I just got raked over the coals by Wolfgang again, who asserts
that his 20D has the same noise characteristics as my Rebel. I
don't know if it does or doesn't but there is something vastly
different because he thinks he's OK all the way to 3200 while I
am marginal at 400. So, I chalk it up to my stupidity and try to
learn from my mistakes as best I can.

I'm sure that the next Canon you buy will have improvements.

Yes, and I am sure that what is on the market today, even though
I'm not buying this year, is already better in any number of
ways, but certainly noise, quality of its image processing
computer, and noise. The Rebel was my first DSLR, I was quite
resistant to a DSLR for a long time, so I wanted both small/light
and something in the $900 range, not something in the $2000-3000
range. Maybe next time if I hit the lottery! grin

Yes - it's finally sunny in Edinburgh! I'm enjoying it from
indoors....

Can't speak to Edinburgh, having never been there, but we're
having a lovely late summer here in Michigan and I had a major
blast cruising Woodware during the annual Woodward Avenue Dream
Cruise last week. Life doesn't get any better than that! And,
while I still love photography and would do more if I could turn
my health around, there are many, many other interests in my life
that are very fulfilling besides arguing about esoteric fine
points of camera A vs. camera B. Perhaps that is why you and I
get along so well. We are almost diametrically opposed on just
about every technical aspect of this expensive hobby, but we
understand and respect the other guy's right and freedom to have
different views.

Have a great week!

--
HP, aka Jerry

HEMI-Powered wrote:
Wolfgang Weisselberg added these comments in the current

OK, I'll just accept the fact that I am at least dense, if
not fatally stupid,

Stop being personally offended.

YOU need to look at both what you say and how you say it, it may
just be that you're insulting but don't realize it, or you just
get your jollies that way. Either way, I don't care. I'm pretty
sick and tired of defending what I know to be true against people
who grab me like a rabid dog by the ankle and won't let go.

My, you really need a thicker skin. True, I _do_ attack your
claims if I think they are wrong. But _you_ imply that these
claims are personal attacks, when they are not. And frankly,
it does not matter to this discussion if you are 20 or 40 or
60 or 80 years old, if you are a professor at 3 universities
or a menial worker who never saw the inside of a school. It
does not matter if you are fat or slim. It does not matter
if you are dense and slow or highly intelligent and as fast
thinking as a successful stand-up comedian.

I feel you are pushing your ego into the way of fire to make
others back off disecting what you claim: "I'm just a poor,
humble, dumb old man, please don't say anything I don't agree
with, or I'll get arthritis, gout and a heart attack!". That
kind of taking everything as an ad hominem attack is getting
old _very_ quickly.


What is that "enough noise" you claim? Are you looking at
300% on the screen, looking for noise? Are you printing the
images out at 100x150 cm and look at a 10cm distance? Are you
comparing them to a extremely high grained ISO 6 (six) film?

What are you doing?

I'm equally sick and tired of describing in detail over and over
again what I do and why I do it the way I do.

You have never described anything. You just recently alluded
you went to some automobile museums, shot at ISO 800 and 1600,
and then threw the pictures away as completely useless due
to noise. You alluded that you were not willing to take the
extra work needed to clean up the noise without flattening
fine detail (which is a valid choice).

This tells me only that you saw some noise in very small details
and that that bothered you. However, this seem to tell me me
that you are looking at the image with a huge magnification, like
1:1 pixel on the monitor, or at prints of at least 12x18 inch,
looking very closely, or even with a loupe.

If so, I believe you are probably expecting too much, but
that, again, depends on what you use the images for. If you
want them printed 2 meters wide at a store front where people
will look at them from very close up that is a very different
use case than, say 4x6 or 12x18 inch pictures in an album or
800x534 pixels on the web.

It also depends on things like agressive cropping or not in
post processing.


That's why I am asking: I don't understand your use case, since
you never mentioned it --- and thus I cannot even think of any
hint to improve your images in respect to noise. It's very weary
asking and asking and not getting any usable answer.

You could also place one or two chosen images showing the noise
you have problems with online, and see if people say "Gosh,
that's a lot of noise for ISO 1600, your camera is ill" or
"Yep, that's about average, the camera cannot do better, but
you could use ... to lower the noise, here's what I did URL.
That's better for you?"

If you hunt for noise, you'll see it at ISO 100. You'll also
see film grain with analog film, much worse, btw, than your
camera, on an ISO by ISO comparison.

I don't "hunt" for noise at any ISO, but I am also not blind.
And, it really is of no importance what you or anyone else thinks
a Rebel can or cannot do, it is only important what /I/ think.
One more time, there is NOT one way of looking at a given issue
or one way of doing something, learn to live with it, I have.
And, give up your zealot's mentality in constantly talking to me
like I was a child, and a dumb child at that. I don't like it,
and if I talked down to you the way you do to me, you'd be
equally irate.

I have been asking and, I admit, prodding you for information,
but you have been evading to give said information. The way I
see the discussion shaping it's more like the man going to the
doctor, saying:
"It hurts if I move fast, I thus cannot move fast!"
"Where?"
"Well, it hurts."
"Ok, what does hurt? Does it hurt if you move your arms?"
"I am the one who hurts, don't treat me like an idiot.
I'm very disappointed that it hurts!"
"Well, what exactly are you doing when it hurts? What kind
of pain is it, anyway?"
"It hurts! You are talking down to me like a child! I already
told you it hurts!"
"I have examined you to the extend you allow me to. I can
see nothing out of the ordinary. Yet you tell me it hurts
if you move fast. In what way are you moving fast? Are you
running up stairs? Are you expecting pain? How much pain is
there anyway? Are you maybe mistaking the normal exhaustion
and/or side stitches for something that's wrong with you?"
"Maybe I am a complete idiot, but it hurts, and I resent you
talkiung to me that way!"

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera

which is really, really not enchanting.

Interestingly, the month AFTER I bought my camera 20
months ago, Popular Photography did an eval of the Rebel.
THEY said that 200 was tops before noise began to be
objectionable, and THEY said that the Rebel was not designed
to shoot at 800 or 1600 without a LOT of work in the digital
darkroom.

And Popular Photography has rated which cameras no have no
"objectionable" noise at ISO 400 or 800?

I don't know, and I don't care!

Well, that's good. In that case, you have no basis to compare your
camera to anything. For all we know, PP is very very critical of
noise --- which may be exactly the same attitude to noise you have.
In that case, you should look what cameras they rate as not having
"objectionable" noise at ISO 400 and/or 800, so you know that
these cameras are more what you want.

Have you suddenly gone dense? I said I read ONE review of a Rebel XT
a month after I bought mine and THEY said it was noisy, both in the
lab and in practical application.

Well, without knowing what THEY call noisy, *I* can call a 20D
ISO 100 image noisy. The question is not if noise is there
(there is always noise, since you get a poisson distributions
with electrons and the camera wells of DSLRs are only 40-80k
electrons deep --- and that's a physical fact, no way around it,
not even with perfect electronics and D/A converters!) but if
the noise is "objectionable". Obviously, "objectionable" is a
very flexible term: one man's "Noise? What noise?" is another's
"Complete crap image with that noise!"

And both can be right. Again, that also depends on the use
cases.

That, combined with what my two eyes
tell me is enough for me to accept the idea that it just ain't useful
at high ISO.

Here's a night shot, 1 second exposure, ISO 3200.
http://weissel.smugmug.com/photos/119741061-L.jpg
Is this shot noisy?
Is it unusable?

Here's another:
http://weissel.smugmug.com/photos/119742206-L-1.jpg
Noisy? Sure. Even with NoiseNinja.
Unusable? Nope.
(f/4, 6 seconds, equivalent ISO 16.000 (the 20D's ISO 3200
is in reality ISO 4000, this image was pushed 2 stops))

Or this one:
http://weissel.smugmug.com/photos/119741587-L-1.jpg
Noisy? Hell, yes. You see the noise pattern from the
sensor. f/4, 3.2seconds, in the same lighting situation as
the one above. Effective ISO? I guess 25.000 or 30.000.
(Of course, Noise Ninja was used, to make the image look
better.)

Unusable? As a "look, no noise", surely so.
As a web image, documenting the bloomery furnace experiment?
Very much usable.

I don't make this stuff up just to annoy you and the others,
so just write me off as a senile old fool and let it drop,
OK? Thank you.

Stop being personally offended. It gets OLD really fast.

This is literally going to be the LAST time I reply to you.

"literally" is not a word used to strengthen a meaning.
If you write "his jaw hit the floor", it's obviously not
meant that his jaw and the floor touched one another.

If you however write "his jaw literally hit the floor" one
must conclude that someone cut off his jaw and let it fall to
the floor, or alternatively, the rest of his body hit the
floor as well.

You've attacked me by personally insulting me

If disagreeing with you is personally insulting you, if having a
different opinion --- even worse --- personal experience different
from yours is personally insulting you ...

and insulting my intelligence

.... and if you think these things insult your intelligence ...

and technical skills for a couple of years.

.... and that commenting on your incorrect claims for a week or so
is "for a couple of years", then I feel very very sorry for you,
because you have never learned to take or understand constructive
criticism.

The image _I_ get from you is that not dissimilar of a family
tyrant or pasha or spoiled only child or politican whom nobody
ever dared to disagree with, who considers disagreement to be the
same as insubordination, who defines himself by always being right
(and death to anyone who dares to disagree).

In that case, you better stop reading newsgroups, because people
here are quite willing to speak their mind and not care if you
are the grand nephew of Bill Gates and Bill Clinton or something.
However, this is *your* problem and not *mine*. If you cannot
take disagreement, tough. Your loss, though, not mine.

BTW. you still are wrong.

If you find them unusable, you will find *every* digital
camera at ISO 800 unusable. Nikon isn't better at ISO 800.

I didn't say it was. How is it that you can leap to such
incorrect conclusions based on no facts and nothing but unfounded
assumptions?

Which conclusions? I merely said that if you had choosen Nikon
it's not been better, telling you indirectly your choice wasn't
wrong. If you choose to misread that ... your loss.

-Wolfgang

--
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back
home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with
treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the
timid." Q discussing UseNet with Picard in "Q Who"

On Thu, 23 Aug 2007 12:22:50 +0200, Wolfgang Weisselberg
wrote:

Doug Freese wrote:
"Wolfgang Weisselberg" wrote in message

On the gripping hand, the 70-200 is a very good zoom.

Canon just came out with the 55-250 IS. Any idea how this compares
with the 70-200 in quality.

The 55-250 is a "white ring" lens (according to the dpreview
photo), the 70-200 is an "L" lens.

'nough said.

-Wolfgang

You are a lens snob.

A wine snob picks his wine by the label and by price. If you hide the
label and don't disclose how much was paid, they can't tell which wine
is good and which wine is bad.

Likewise, a lens snob looks for a red ring and a high price tab.
Without those attributes, they assume the lens is not good enough for
them.

But independent tests show that lenses like the Canon 10-22mm, the
f2.8/17-55 IS, and the 70-300mm IS, none of which are endowed with red
stripes, are every bit as good optically as the more ostentatious
lenses. The 70-300 has the additional advantage of being light-weight
and easy to take most anywhere.

So please, let's take some shots with the 55-250 before taking shots
at it.

KS