Camera Freaks, this is your thread!

Hey i got some questions about SLR's.

I have an old canon ae-1 and a bunch of lens for it. But i am thinking of upgrading to a newer digital SLR caseing.

I am going to take a shot in the dark and assume for business purpose's Canons designed the new digital bodies so that old lenses will not work.

But i could also be wrong? Which is why i am asking you lot. I have been away from the whole photography thing for almost 12 years now. So any advice would be welcome.

Canon_AE-1_front_with_50mm_lens.jpg
 
I have a friend who moved from Canon 35mm film camera bodies to DSLR and he still uses his old collection of lenses. I don't know if there are any limitations or drawbacks but the basic mounts are certainly compatible.

FYI, I did the same thing, moving from Nikon SLR bodies to DSLR and my old lenses still work too. Mine are old enough that they don't have features like auto focus--but they still mount on the bodies and take good pictures.
 
Canon FD series lenses are not directly usable on their newer EF series film and digital series SLR bodies. The older FD series were fully manual lenses with no electronics inside of them to do things like auto focus or set aperture via control systems in the camera body. The newer EF series lenses, which became available in the early 90's replaced the older FD series stuff that was in production in the 70's and 80's.

There is a third party mount adapter available from a few different manufacturers so that the older lens can be used but they will still be full manual control lenses. Also, in many cases, the newest lens designs are significantly sharper and better at dealing with lens flare, color aberration and image distortion. So getting new lenses to go with the new bodies is not a bad thing.

Cheers! :)
 
MasterRS said:
slr's seem to be popular for music videos
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Yeah, the manufacturers have managed to squeeze in the video function into these still cameras and teased buyers into thinking that they would be suitable replacements for dedicated video cameras. I personally don't think they've really offered a complete solution as many key features are sadly missing such as viable full time auto focus systems, strong enough battery designs to last through powering the camera's live view and lens image stabilizer gyros and last but not least, the ergonomics to comfortably use it as a video device. But they do offer the aspiring videographer the ability to shoot with interchangeable lenses which is normally only available on pro level video cameras and that is the biggest component of the allure.

Cheers! :)
 
There's one more drawback to using an SLR as a video camera--and that's the audio. Many of the cheaper ones have no ability to add an external mic at all and even the good ones tend to offer only a basic 1/8th inch mini jack.

I'm a regular over a the Adobe Audition forums and, since Audition became part of their "Creative Suite", we get very frequent questions from vidographers asking how to fix the rubbish audio they got shooting with their DSLR. Alas, there's rarely an option beyond ADR for the whole thing since a cheap on-camera mic 15 feet away from the speaker is pretty useless.
 
Yeah, in essence, they're just teasing you with the video functionality as all it probably does is force the serious videographer to go out and get a real video camera with all the proper features and ergonomics.

Though I have seen a few hot shoe mount xlr balanced microphone preamp units that will output to the 1/8" stereo Mic jacks on some of the cameras and have also seen various screen hoods and pistol grips to make shooting more comfortable. But if you're going to slap on all that extra brickabrack, you're going to end up spending near as much as just getting a decent entry level pro camcorder.

Anyway, to each his own, I suppose. ;)

Cheers! :)
 
Indeed.

On a fundamental level (speaking as a sound guy who had to pick up the camera and shoot from time to time) I was always much happier with something a bit bigger and heavier that sat on my shoulder than with something I had to hold out in front of me. To each their own I suppose!
 
I used to shoot about 200 rolls of 35mm film a year, mostly racing, but a lot of other stuff as my travels allowed. Digital is so much easier and considering that very few people actually print out photographs anymore, it hardly seemed worth the expense to do it 'for myself'. Most often, after looking at, sorting through and albuming the pictures, I'd never look at them again.
This picture was taken with my last digital (12M).The company I work for has a contest each year for employees' photos for their annual calendar. I got the cover several years ago, this one will be a standard monthly shot ($500 for new gear!)

small_East_Dexters_Grist_Mill_Sandwich_MA.jpg
 
Hey Ghost!!!!!!

A few months ago I bought the Canon t2i body because it can record video. I've experimented with it on and off and I'm really impressed with the video quality. The audio wasn't all too impressive so I have ordered a Rode Videomic-Pro from B&H. Do you you have any experience with this mic? I like the fact that it has a -10db pad and a +20dB pad.

Thread needed bumping.
 
Hey 60's guy. I have not dealt with the rode you are talking about, but I do have a t2i. From what I understand, the best fix for the audio on the t2i (besides the better mic) is to load aftermarket firmware that allows you to disable the automatic signal level function and lets you set it manually. You may already know this, but if not you might want to google "magic lantern for t2i". All kinds of info will come up.

F.S.
 
Randy,

No experience with that Mic either. I use an AT stereo point source condenser with internal battery powered phantom power. Though my camera has no video. But does offer audio recording to make make verbal notes on each image, if I choose to.

Cheers! :)
 
I've not tried the Rode Video mic but I used to carry a Rode NTG2 as a backup to a Sennheiser 416 and got excellent results--I'd be surprised if anything from Rode wasn't pretty good.

However, for use with DSLRs I can strongly recommend THIS KIT from Lindos. It does an excellent job of getting really good audio from a DSLR. If you haven't heard of Lindos, they've long made professional Audio test sets which we used all the time for everything from aligning the audio on VTRs to checking satellite and fibre optic sound channels used for feeds halfway around the world.
 
Freudian Slip said:
Hey 60's guy. I have not dealt with the rode you are talking about, but I do have a t2i. From what I understand, the best fix for the audio on the t2i (besides the better mic) is to load aftermarket firmware that allows you to disable the automatic signal level function and lets you set it manually. You may already know this, but if not you might want to google "magic lantern for t2i". All kinds of info will come up.

F.S.
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Thanks for that info FS!

It kinda made me chuckle a bit. There's a strip bar about 25 miles away from here that is named the "Magic Lantern". It won't be all too difficult to google. lol
 
Bobbsy said:
I've not tried the Rode Video mic but I used to carry a Rode NTG2 as a backup to a Sennheiser 416 and got excellent results--I'd be surprised if anything from Rode wasn't pretty good.

However, for use with DSLRs I can strongly recommend THIS KIT from Lindos. It does an excellent job of getting really good audio from a DSLR. If you haven't heard of Lindos, they've long made professional Audio test sets which we used all the time for everything from aligning the audio on VTRs to checking satellite and fibre optic sound channels used for feeds halfway around the world.
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I really like the look of those telescoping mic stalks. That is very cool! And it makes sense that camera noise would be reduced using a set up like that.
 
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