I'm So Excited

[Guest Finepix]

My new camera has just arrived - Canon EOS 350D. I'm so worried that I'm going to be completely crap as it's all manual, but time will tell

 

Happy happy happy ...........

[Steve Randles]

WTG Finepix! Cant wait to see your first pictures..

 

Steve

[Guest Finepix]

Neither can I Too much going on in the manual, so I've stopped reading it, will do some chores take in some coffee (albeit de-caff!), wait for the battery to charge up and will hit it again this afternoon.

The lens arrived ten minutes after the camera (went for the basic 18-55mm kit lens but have also bought a sigma 70-300mm which is good for macro shots) so I'm even more excited now!

 

Do you know how long the battery lasts before it needs another charge up? I'm used to going 2-3 days with four AA's, but this is a re-chargeable lithium jobbie. Should I also buy a battery grip?

 

Too much to take in - back later

[Tony U]

Finepix Ive got the 70-300APO Sigma lens for my EOS300D along with a 2x converter to do Nature stuff still circumspect about the first results as they were taken in low light conditions but hopefully it will do the business when I do a birding trip to the Coto Donana in March.

Rather than buy the battery grip I bought a spare compatible battery from the web; identical to the Canon one but a quarter of the price, that way you will always have a chrged battery available.

Tony

[Steve Randles]

My Canon is the digital rebel, slightly diferent from yours, but the battery will last as long as filling 2x256mb cards (on high quality res), with shot preview turned on, so I can immediaely see what I've captured. The battery will go a bit further and power the upload of both these cards contents to the PC, then it needs a recharge.

 

I got a new 1GB card for Christmas, and in anticipation of filling all cards I have ordered two extra batteries, which I estimate will power the camera for a full days shoot and upload all images to the PC, from the three cards.

[Gillies]

Ive got the Sigma 70-300 also, it is a really good lens once you get to play with it a bit and understand more about it ... the Macro on it is great feature, been in the 200-300 range also means its very handy for wee fellows you dont want to get to close to .... ie Wasps, Bees and for getting closer to things that might fly or run away ... I love the results from it in manual focus. When the 300D first came out in 2003, it was seen as the standard zoom for everyone to get as it was such a good value for money lens. I only tried it with a Teleconverter once ... it was seeking autofocus to much for my liking, and I wasn't happy with the results.

 

The battery in these cameras are really good, life span wise I find. I'd get the Battery grip if you find you need it, I would not be without it, it makes holding the camera much more comfortable and having the additional side controls on it makes going vertical so much easier ... especially doing portrait shots .... plus having 2 batteries in the camera gives a wee bit more ease of mind when out taking shots.

 

As Tony says, you get spare non-canon batteries at a fraction of the price .... eBay great for them.

 

Gillies

[phil dean]

Good news, In a way i'm jealous as I'm still on the e500, but on the other hand this is great for me, you can find out all the info finepix, then I'll buy mine and be able to check everything out on here..............best of luck and please post some of the photos soon.

 

cheers

[Elton]

Nice that we're all sharing in this excitement

 

Come on, get snapping!

[Guest Finepix]

  Elton said:

Nice that we're all sharing in this excitement

 

Come on, get snapping!

 

Thanks Elton. I have some serious manual reading to do first, it's all so different from what I'm used to.

Hopefully I'll be up and running before the 'communication' comp is over.

 

And thanks for all the battery advice guys, much appreciated.

 

[Tony U]

You can get 350D compatible batteries from 7dayshop.com for £9.99 VAT free + postage, worth a look I would think!

Tony

PS Tip if you use the teleconverter use manual focus; I learned from my mistakes.

Edited January 5, 2006 by Tony U