Canon owners, do yourself a favor....

[coffee]

I bought my most current 40d 100-400L, and 24-70L about 7 months ago, and have always thought the photos were a little soft, but I've always thought it was me. Some of it probably was.

Now that the weather has changed and I don't get out as much, I decided to send my camera and 2 lenses in to have cleaned and calibrated under the warentee(sp). I got the camera and the 1-4 back. Other lens will be here tomorrow.

What a difference the calibration made. I tested the 1-4 out today and the differance is big. Tack sharp under the same shooting condition as before the cal.

I know they cal. things in factory before they ship it out to sell, but have your lenses calibrated to your particular camera. Even if it's not still covered, I would think it would be well worth it to spend a little and have this done. I wish I would have done it many months ago.

[LensBaby]

Hey show me some photos of before and after! Please! Now you have me curious. The bad thing is I cannot be without my camera due to college course. UGh

[dkippen]

Joseph - I have been thinking about doing this over the last month or so. I picked up a used 100-400 at Natl Camera this summer and wondered if I should spend the $$ to have it checked out. Now maybe I will.

[coffee]

Joseph - I have been thinking about doing this over the last month or so. I picked up a used 100-400 at Natl Camera this summer and wondered if I should spend the $$ to have it checked out. Now maybe I will.

Is it New Deb? If so it's covered for calibtation and cleaning and anything else you need done. If not I would check the cost. You can call and get a quote. I would send you camera in also to calibrate it to your camera. But I would call and talk to them at service. I think it's worth it to have done. I think it really helped mine. I haven't had it back long and haven't use it much at all. My 24-70 will be back today. That one I can use inside so I will know more later about that.

[dkippen]

No - bought it used.

Just got the 50D, think I should send that in for calibration already??

[coffee]

No - bought it used.

Just got the 50D, think I should send that in for calibration already??

I visit a site dedicated to Canon talk, and from what I gathered it is very benificial to send your stuff in for cal. It's general knowledge that things are calibrated before being sold, but there is a tolerance. Having camera and lens can fine tune that calibrating. I think it is very worth it and wish I did this a long time ago. Now being that you 50d is new, they might cal the lens to your camera for free. In fact I'm sure they will. You wouldn't get away with just sending in the lens alone for free I wouldn't think.

CONGRATS ON YOUR NEW CAMERA!!!! Wonderful!

[dkippen]

I think I'll have to give them a call then. Would you mind sharing the "canon talk" site?

So far, I'm impressed with what little pictures I've taken. All kinds of new buttons and knobs to learn.

[coffee]

I think I'll have to give them a call then. Would you mind sharing the "canon talk" site?

So far, I'm impressed with what little pictures I've taken. All kinds of new buttons and knobs to learn.

Well listen, maybe you should play with it for a while before you send it in then. It may be that it's tack sharp for you as it is. For me, I noticed under ideal condition that things may be soft. That when I start seearch out info. Let me know how things go.

When I called tech support, he saif there was two ways to do this. Have the pieces calibtated separtly, or have the lenses calibrated to the camera. And since I wanted the sharpest images posible, I decided to go the with the equipement call to each other. I raised a concern that I have a XT backup camera, and how this may affect that body with the lenses after cal. He said that since the sensor is the same size, the cal lenses should be good with that camera too. But I might not believe that unless that camera was part of the cal process.

Here is the site. Very very good site. It's huge and has more info than any other site I've seen.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=9

The above is the direct link to the canon equipement talk. Go to the home page to see the extent of the site. I would seach the site for calibration and see what everyone says and maybe opst your question about it. You will get responses within seconds I'm sure.

[dkippen]

Joseph - thanks. I do remember visiting this site, but I forget to bookmark it.

[coffee]

You welcome.

You will or already have noticed how deep the custom functions are. One of the best changes I made to this camera that I didn't have on my XT was splitting up the focus and shutter commands.

I don't know what all kinds of photography you do, but if you do wildlife regularly, or anything that moves really, you might look into splitting these commands up.

You can use the AF-On or * on the back of the camera to do all the focusing, and the shutter to just expose and click the shots. The reason this is so usefull is because by defaut the shutter does all of this. If you set to rapid fire and following a moving subject, it only exposes once for all the shots while you hold the shutter whether the exposure changes or not. If you split this up, the shutter will expose on every click while you hold the shutter down.

I hope this makes sense. It may be two setting in CF you have to change to make this happen. And it's a little tough getting use to this method, but eventually becomes second nature. And I would never go back to the defaut way now that I'm use to this. Some don't like it, but most nature shooters love it.

If this sounds interesting to you, do a search on this also. There is lot of threads about it.

[dkippen]

Joseph - I think I figured out the AF-On button on the back. And I was also able to set custom function buttons for two different styles of shooting, one for wildlife, the other for landscape.

It is very different from the XTI. Sometimes, I think it will take forever to get used to the buttons, but unfortunately, not any time soon. It is a lot of fun though to find out something new about the camera.

[coffee]

Oh Deb, one thing I forgot to mention. Get a focus chart and test your cmaera/lens. There is one on the site above. Test things for focus and you will know if they need cal. Guess I should have mentioned this before. Sorry.