40D 50D or 5D II

[Colin Southern]

So does mine. And I do have a CoA from the manufacture.

I'll show you mine if you show me yours!

[DTruex]

I have a couple nice ones.

[Colin Southern]

I'll call your Speedmaster Automatic, and raise you a Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch

[Colin Southern]

I have a couple nice ones.

I've never seen Rolex spelt with 2 "X"s before - are you sure that CoA is genuine?!

[ilovelucydog]

I'll show you mine if you show me yours!

You have hairy arms... Just sayin'.

[Colin Southern]

You have hairy arms... Just sayin'.

Just that arm ... I'm actually bald everywhere else!

[ilovelucydog]

Just that arm ... I'm actually bald everywhere else!

Really...so do you shave or wax?

[hashim]

i was shooting for several years with a d100 nikon on raw and used the nikon capture4 software + photoshop and got good photo quality.then i shifted to d200 and went to 10 million pix. and better colours untill i just bought 5dmk2 +24-105 l searies F4.at first i was very confused and thought i've made a terrible mistake of loosing alot of money with no big difference in quality.then i studied well the
mark2 catalog and made several experiments and started really feeling the huge difference in quality.but up to now i felt that this camera needs patience to prepare its appropriate settings for the situation you are photographing and once you are done the quality it gives you is unbeatible.this needed patience to get the fabulous result makes the mark2 not very good for action or rapid decision photography such as action sports childtren playing...etc so it depends in my opinion what do you want to photograph.
since you are new to the field ,don't buy a camera that might be hard on you to give you good results and concentrate on learning how to see things around you worth photographing instead of only looking at them.i mean get a camera that makes it first easy on you tecknically so you can feel happy in learning the artistic part of the quest.i find it faster and easier to get a tecnically good photo with a 30d-40d-50d-60d-and 7d canon and d200-d300s-d7000-...etc nikon than with a mark2 although there quality is not to be compared with mk2.but at the beginning may be you will hate photography with a mk2 because you must really know well about using it to get what you really want or dream of it and what you always hear of it of being the best of the best.finally do not forget that it's not about
the camera as much it is about the eye and most of all the brain behind it.may you have a lovely life full of joy and happiness and happy birthday!

[arith]

[Colin Southern]

How's your monitor's black point Steve?

[arith]

It is an old photo.

However, my mum had a Rolex she wanted me to sell or have repaired. I gave it to a charity shop, but I did have to tell the assistant it was worth more than a few pounds.

It was one of the cheaper ones, but still would cost £400 new, without scratches and working.

[arith]

Actually it was taken in 2009 after I had a dslr about a month using GN or guide number. But recently I've been getting some odd results using ETTL.

What is the best metering for ETTL? I can take a pic over several different meterings and they come out different with the best exposure with average metering.

Some come out dark so I figure it must be too much for the flash and open the aperture, but still the same until I add exposure compensation. Some come out overexposed.

So is it still a guess, eg dial in + exposure compensation for dark objects and - exposure compensation for light ones?

I wished they didn't invent all this automatic crap, then everybody would have the same problems

[inkista]

Some come out dark so I figure it must be too much for the flash and open the aperture, but still the same until I add exposure compensation. Some come out overexposed.

OK. Fundamental lesson on how eTTL works:

The camera tells the flash to send out a pre-flash burst of light of a known brightness.
The camera meters the subject by the metering mode you told it to.
The camera then adjusts the flash's power output to bring the level of the subject up to what the known level should be.

Essentially, any exposure setting adjustment you make becomes transparent via eTTL. If you adjust the ISO or the aperture, the flash power will always be adjusted to make your subject that same level of brightness no matter what. And of course, shutter speed is already transparent to the flash illumination, anyway.

So, no, adjusting your aperture won't have any affect. Your only recourse with eTTL is to use FEC, or go into Manual on the flash and override the eTTL setting. On Canons, EC and FEC are independent controls of each other (I think Nikon's EC also affects the FEC).

So is it still a guess, eg dial in + exposure compensation for dark objects and - exposure compensation for light ones?

Yes. You're still metering-based. But you're thinking of it a little backwards. Remember the whole how-metering-works thing. The values across the sensor are "averaged" (or evaluated, or spotted or whatever) to give the camera a median value of the scene. The exposure settings are then shifted to make that median the middle of the range of what the sensor can capture. A light scene is generally set too dark, a dark scene is generally set too light. What background are you using may have more to do with how the metering works than the object being light/dark.

If you have a 580EX II, btw, there's another alternative which is to use the external sensor.

I wished they didn't invent all this automatic crap, then everybody would have the same problems

No, no. It's still useful. But this is why I tell people that before they dive into flash photography, they really really should learn to master both their cameras [and then their flashes] in full manual mode. Just so they have some idea of what's going on. There are times to take the camera off P to gain precision and control. The same goes for taking your flashes off eTTL and into Manual.

[arith]

Cheers for that Kathy.

[DTruex]

I've never seen Rolex spelt with 2 "X"s before - are you sure that CoA is genuine?!

That's funny. It wasn't spelled "ROLEXX" in the original picture or on the watch. My jeweler says it's authentic. The last "X" is a bit out of alignment too.

[Colin Southern]

That's funny. It wasn't spelled "ROLEXX" in the original picture or on the watch. My jeweler says it's authentic. The last "X" is a bit out of alignment too.

I could have changed the original picture too, but that would be a bit naughty