New Equipment

[NorthernFocus]

...I'm curious about a website called 42nd Street Photo that offers this same camera for $300 less than Canon or B&H Photo....

Sandy, my experience with that particular vendor is dated by several years but yes, it was too good to be true. I placed an order on their website for a camera body. Shortly thereafter I received a call from a sales person inquiring whether I was interested in purchasing any "accessories". To make a long story short, the advertised price for "camera body" was literally for the camera body ONLY. They were going to charge additional for battery, charger, manual, etc. I called their bluff and told them fine, I'd just by the body and order the other things from a third party. They then declined to sell it to me and cancelled my order.

But that was at least 8-9 years ago. Maybe things have changed and now they can actually sell them for that much less than the rest of the free world.

[rpcrowe]

Sandy...

You wrote, "it may be best to stick with sites that are known "good" places to do business even if there is a bit extra in the cost!"

I have found that if the price of new photo gear on any Internet site is well below the Adorama or B&H prices that site is usually a scam

The Internet sellers from Eastern Europe and Brooklyn, New York seem particularly guilty of scam or bait and switch deals

I am sure that there are honest dealers from Eastern Europe and from Brooklyn, New York just as I am certain that a flock of winged pigs just flew over my house

[skitterbug]

Hi Dan - I was leery of that site because it seemed "too good to be true". Thank you for filling in background info about them. I'd rather pay the extra $$ than find out later that I couldn't get something repaired or as happened to you, not getting what was ordered unless extra money was spent. No joy in that!

[skitterbug]

Hi Richard - We posted at the same time with the same conclusions! That the "too good to be true" store front needs to be avoided! I appreciate the verification! And I am glad I was cautious! Maybe this is one time not being able to make decisions is a good thing? <chuckle>

[NorthernFocus]

I like this exercise Dan, although it doesn't cover all the practical issues in play



Building on your example ...

Take a glass saucepan and lid out of the cupboard in your nice warm house and fit lid, then straight away walk out into the sub-freezing outdoors.
Does condensation form on the outside of the glass saucepan? No.
Does condensation soon form on the inside of the glass saucepan? I suspect it will.
(it still has warm air in there, in intimate contact with the rapidly cooling glass walls - much like the inside of a lens barrel, front/rear elements and the insides of camera)

Now leave the glass saucepan (with lid on) outside (in a dry place) until it reaches outside temperature.
~ optional beverage break ~
Now go grab the glass saucepan (with lid on) and bring it back into the toasty warm house straight away.
Does it sweat?
On the outside: Yes
On the inside: I suspect not.

Of course, I haven't actually tried this experiment, it is (thankfully) rarely cold enough here to do it where I live.

Dave, your test would certainly be visually appealing but that's not at all a valid representation of what occurs within a fixed physical volume with a given mass of entrained vapor. In your example the hot liquid is essentially a vapor generator.

In an(apparently poor) attempt to make a point my previous example wasn't intended to explain what occurs inside the lens. I was attempting to point out what is IMO the bigger issue of gross condensation on equipment. Coming in from the cold here, or out from the AC controlled room down south. To demonstrate internal lens fogging maybe a mason jar(or whatever it's called elsewhere) with a (nominal)1.5 mm diameter hole in the lid. Still over-simplified but reasonable. Maybe go crazy and suspend a smaller open topped jar/bottle inside.

But haven't we hijacked this thread too many times already? I suggest if we want to wade into the deep end of this pool it should be done in a thread dedicated to the subject. The thermodynamics are not complex. The potential confusion comes when the system is not accurately modeled.

IMO the issue of getting sidetracked into technical minutia in response to relatively straight forward questions does a disservice to the OP. In these situations f there is truly interest among the technically inquisitive why not remove ourselves to a virtual pub, dust our brains off, and discuss it. In this case we could even work out under what atmospheric conditions internal fogging is likely to occur. And ultimately even publish a user guide in the CiC tutorials for equipment handling in arctic, temperate, and tropical conditions. After all, many here are imminently more qualified than the average photo blogger that's out there misinforming the masses in order to generate advertising revenue

[AlwaysOnAuto]

Hi Alan - I was disappointed - way back when - that I couldn't get my first digital Sony repaired and so I haven't considered them seriously since then. I should get to a store (not an easy task since there isn't a camera store in my immediate area) and get some 'hands on experience' if I can. What looks good on the web may actually be clumsy in my hands. I'd love to take advantage of the Christmas sales that are currently going on but if it doesn't happen now, it will eventually. Hopefully, there will be more "sales" due to new models replacing older stuff. I don't need newest and best, just decent and affordable! <grin>

Thanks for your suggestions!

Are you putting camera weights in your spreadsheet?
How many years ago was your Sony camera built?

You're only doing yourself a disservice by not exploring all the possibilities that are out there. You don't need a camera store to try a camera on for size. Got a Best Buy near by?

[skitterbug]

Are you putting camera weights in your spreadsheet?
How many years ago was your Sony camera built?

You're only doing yourself a disservice by not exploring all the possibilities that are out there. You don't need a camera store to try a camera on for size. Got a Best Buy near by?

1. My Sony ownership was over 10 years ago now. So yes, a long time to hold a grudge against a company.
2. Yep, I am considering weight but so far only the camera body/battery. Not sure what lenses weigh yet or in the case of the Sony, the adapters along with lenses that may be needed.
3. The nearest Best Buy is 40 miles away and they don't have much of a selection listed for display in their store. The next closest one would be around 80 miles. So no easy jaunt especially on snow covered roads.

Thanks for your additional thoughts!

[xpatUSA]

Originally Posted by skitterbug
...I'm curious about a website called 42nd Street Photo that offers this same camera for $300 less than Canon or B&H Photo....

Sandy, my experience with that particular vendor is dated by several years but yes, it was too good to be true. I placed an order on their website for a camera body. Shortly thereafter I received a call from a sales person inquiring whether I was interested in purchasing any "accessories". To make a long story short, the advertised price for "camera body" was literally for the camera body ONLY. They were going to charge additional for battery, charger, manual, etc. I called their bluff and told them fine, I'd just by the body and order the other things from a third party. They then declined to sell it to me and cancelled my order.

But that was at least 8-9 years ago. Maybe things have changed and now they can actually sell them for that much less than the rest of the free world.

Maybe not, Dan.

About four years ago, I bought a Panasonic DMC-G1 kit from there. When I received the box, the kit lens had been removed. I returned the box & camera for a refund. They were quite straightforward about it, saying "we always do that" as if I should have known! No trouble with the refund. In England we used to call that "inertia selling" - many people being too lazy to send stuff back.

[xpatUSA]

Originally Posted by Dave Humphries I like this exercise Dan, although it doesn't cover all the practical issues in play



Building on your example ...

Take a glass saucepan and lid out of the cupboard in your nice warm house and fit lid, then straight away walk out into the sub-freezing outdoors.
Does condensation form on the outside of the glass saucepan? No.
Does condensation soon form on the inside of the glass saucepan? I suspect it will.
(it still has warm air in there, in intimate contact with the rapidly cooling glass walls - much like the inside of a lens barrel, front/rear elements and the insides of camera)

Now leave the glass saucepan (with lid on) outside (in a dry place) until it reaches outside temperature.
~ optional beverage break ~
Now go grab the glass saucepan (with lid on) and bring it back into the toasty warm house straight away.
Does it sweat?
On the outside: Yes
On the inside: I suspect not.

Of course, I haven't actually tried this experiment, it is (thankfully) rarely cold enough here to do it where I live.

Dave, your test would certainly be visually appealing but that's not at all a valid representation of what occurs within a fixed physical volume with a given mass of entrained vapor. In your example, the hot liquid is essentially a vapor generator.

<>

What hot liquid?! In Dave's example, quoted above, there is no mention of "hot liquid" at all. No mention of "liquid" anywhere, as a matter of fact.

[george013]

In relation to photography pressure is totally not important. It's the temperature of the surface only. Going from cold outside to the warm inside has been explained before. Going from the warm inside to the cold outside is something different. The body will cool through its material. What's getting cold first is that material with less heat resistance: the glass. The relative warm air in the camera is cooling down and condensation will happen on that cold surface inside the lens. Try to replace that warm air in the camera with cold air by taking off the lens.
One can also play with the Molierdiagram. Before entering your warm house take off the lens and put the caps on it. The air in it won't change, so does the amount of water in that air. When going outside next day place the lens back in the outside air. No moist will be seen since there's not enough water in the air inside the lens. And the camera will be refreshed with cold outside air. Just a thought. I don't go outside when it's that cold.

George

[NorthernFocus]

What hot liquid?! In Dave's example, quoted above, there is no mentioned of "hot liquid" at all.

There's not indeed. Guess I read the "building on your example" and "fit lid" and took it back to the first cup of tea. So as long as it's not an air tight lid it's the same example as my mason jar. Thanks for pointing that out, Ted. And well done, Dave. Like I said, the brain a bit of dusting off

Dave, I'll run your test. It's not very cold but by the numbers should be cool enough to drop out a bit of water. Not sure we have any unused mason jars but surely my bride has some glass covered pans.

[NorthernFocus]

...Going from the warm inside to the cold outside is something different. The body will cool through its material. What's getting cold first is that material with less heat resistance: the glass. The relative warm air in the camera is cooling down and condensation will happen on that cold surface inside the lens...

No doubt the theory is sound. Yet without taking any extraordinary precautions with equipment hygiene I've managed to shoot hundreds of thousands of frames over the course of 17 years in Alaska without ever having experienced visible internal fogging in a lens. So what's up?

[george013]

No doubt the theory is sound. Yet without taking any extraordinary precautions with equipment hygiene I've managed to shoot hundreds of thousands of frames over the course of 17 years in Alaska without ever having experienced visible internal fogging in a lens. So what's up?

Tell Sandy. It was one, or even the main, of the reasons for a new equipment.

George

[NorthernFocus]

Tell Sandy. It was one, or even the main, of the reasons for a new equipment.

George

Keep the camera and move north, Sandy. Or buy Nikon.

[DanK]

With all due respect, I think this thread has been partially hijacked. I suspect that Sandy has what he needs in terms of condensation.

Sandy, re weight: I have no dog in the mirrorless/DSLR fight; I own both types of cameras. But given your response, I think a little more information about weight and size might be helpful. Given the same sensor size, mirrorless cameras are smaller and lighter because of all of the stuff they don't need--the prism, the mechanism for flipping the mirror, etc. However, the differences get proportionally smaller if you look at the whole package. First, optics are optics, and given a particular lens design, the distance between sensor and rear element doesn't change just because you have removed the mirror. For that reason, mirrorless lenses are often larger than comparable DSLR lenses, and in some cases, this eats up the size difference, front to back. I don't keep track of these things because I am not in the market for a new camera, but I have seen a few detailed comparisons on the web recently. The few lenses I have compared are roughly similar in weight, despite the difference in size, so the absolute weight advantage remains, but in proportional terms, it shrinks. That's without adapters.

That's all for FF. In the case of crop-sensor bodies, I would have to look up weights, which you can get easily on the B&H website. However, Canon EF-S lenses are considerably lighter than their EF lenses; they are designed to take advantage of the smaller image circle and shorter distance from rear element to sensor. However, the disadvantage there is that if at some point you do move up to FF, the EF-S lenses won't work. If you buy them as refurbs, you won't lose all that much if you have to sell them.

[rpcrowe]

I never mentioned some personal tastes.

I would NEVER choose a camera without an eye level viewfinder! I simply would not do ANY photography if the only option was to use a camera with only an LCD as a viewfinder.

Although I am not as adamant in this dislike, I really have not liked the eye level electronic viewfinders that I have used. This is especially true in shooting fast moving subjects. I far prefer a DSLR that incorporates a mirror.

As far as weight goes, I am 77-years a;d and still shoot with DSLR cameras. I also quite frequently carry a pair of cameras while shooting so I don't have to switch lenses in the field as often.

However, I am selective in my carry around camera gear. As an example, I selected the 70-200mm f/4L IS lens rather than the f/2.8 model because it is considerably lighter in weight.

In fact, a Canon 7D Mark-2 and a 70-200mm f/4L IS along with a 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens could easily suit 90% of my shooting. Throw in a 1.4x TC and an extension tube or close-up filter and that percentage would climb even higher.

I really love the auto focus capability of my 7D2 paired with the above lenses.

At a lesser cost, the 7D2 or 80D paired with a pair of Tamron lenses 70-300mm VC and 17-50mm f/2.8 VC would be a very adequate combination.

A bonus when you select Nikon or Canon (IMO especially Canon) is that you have a larger choice of lenses and can often find great lenses on the used market. As an example, I purchased a used Canon 300mm f/4L IS lens, shot with it for several years,





and then sold it for right about the price I purchased it for. I did the same thing with a 400mm f/5.6L lens.

I only sold these lenses when Canon came out with their 100-400mm f/4.5L IS Mark-2 ii lens. I was able to have the advantage of both these lenses in one package. Although the 100-400 Mk-ii is heavier than either the 300mm or 400mm primes, it is a lot lighter in weight than both of these. I would not recommend the 100-400 Mark-ii lens to you because it would come close to eating up your entire photography budget.

However, probably the absolute best bang for your buck in lenses for birds in flight (BIF) would be a used 400mm f/5.6L lens. It doesn't have IS and has only an f/5.6 aperture but the image quality is to die for, the autofocus is fast and accurate and it is quite lightweight for a 400mm lens. It is often available on the used market at a decent price because many other photographers have also gravitated to the expensive and heavy 100-400 Mk.2. The 300mm f/4L IS lens is a close second but, better for bigger birds. It can, however, accept a 1.4x TC with little AF speed loss and virtually no IQ loss.

[skitterbug]

I think that Sandy has what he needs in terms of condensation.

Hi Dan - It has been interesting reading. So I haven't minded the side track of information.

In regard to camera weight - Looking at the data in camera specs, it seems most of them are within ounces of each other as far as camera bodies are concerned. I get the impression that it will be the lenses that add to the overall weight.

These are the two models I've been looking at the most:
Canon EOS 7D Mark II DSLR - which is a cropped camera
Canon EOS 6D Mark II DSLR which is a full frame camera

I think it is interesting that Canon wants to confuse the types of cameras by using nearly the same naming pattern but anyway, each of these seem decent. I'm leaning to the 7D but yes, still thinking..

Hi George - I will either keep my current one for an extra or I will give it to my daughter. It isn't only the moisture problem that I "thought" I had, I'm looking for update in equipment. Crazy maybe? but it may be now or never.

Hi Dan -

Keep the camera and move north, Sandy Or buy Nikon.

Put a Nikon kit together for me? <grin> But I am definitely not moving north! <LOL>

As always, I do appreciate any and all information! For me, all of the discussion has been good.

[rpcrowe]

Sandy,
I would choose the 7D2 over the 5D2 because of the far-far better auto focus capability of the 7D2. I purchased a 5D2 because I did not have the space to back up far enough when shooting my dogs with my favorite 70-200mm f/4L IS lens. It does a great job for that venue but, the AF feels absolutely antiquated in comparison to when I shoot with the 7D2.

I have heard that the AF of the 80D comes pretty darn close to that of the 7D2...

BTW: Canon refurbished items are super. I have purchased several cameras this way and have always been happy.

I purchased my 7D2 from Canon several years ago as a refurbished item. It was on sale and I still have not found a refurbished or new 7D2 as cheap as I paid for my copy.

[george013]

......
Hi George - I will either keep my current one for an extra or I will give it to my daughter. It isn't only the moisture problem that I "thought" I had, I'm looking for update in equipment. Crazy maybe? but it may be now or never.
.......

Not crazy. Quite normal.
But your moisture problem hasn't been solved yet. . Still to many questions. You might have it with your new equipment too. I mean internal moisture.

George

[xpatUSA]

There's no [mention of hot liquid] indeed. Guess I read the "building on your example" and "fit lid" and took it back to the first cup of tea. So as long as it's not an air tight lid it's the same example as my mason jar. Thanks for pointing that out, Ted.

You're welcome, Dan.