I bought the S2 instead of the 70-300DO ?

excal said:

I'd rather take an S2 over a video camera - my dad bought a
Panasonic I think it was for about £250 a few months back. I'm not
impressed - even though it claimed to be digital, it was analogue!
There was no way I could find to hook it up to USB and download the
movie - just playback and sample it over PAL. Yuk! The S2 is pure
digital AVI.... just a shame it's not MPEG compressed, but hey,
perhaps the S3? So, I have a lot of respect for the S2 for video
from what I've seen of it's competitors on the other side of the
fence. The Canon £2,000 one is a another matter though...

Excal

Click to expand...

Digital video cameras use firewire, not USB, to transfer video.

There may be a few out there that attempt it over USB, but at reduced frame rates or something like that, but to put it simply, firewire is designed for transferring high bandwidth video, and USB isn't.

boozed said:

excal said:

I'd rather take an S2 over a video camera - my dad bought a
Panasonic I think it was for about £250 a few months back. I'm not
impressed - even though it claimed to be digital, it was analogue!
There was no way I could find to hook it up to USB and download the
movie - just playback and sample it over PAL. Yuk! The S2 is pure
digital AVI.... just a shame it's not MPEG compressed, but hey,
perhaps the S3? So, I have a lot of respect for the S2 for video
from what I've seen of it's competitors on the other side of the
fence. The Canon £2,000 one is a another matter though...

Excal

Click to expand...

Digital video cameras use firewire, not USB, to transfer video.
There may be a few out there that attempt it over USB, but at
reduced frame rates or something like that, but to put it simply,
firewire is designed for transferring high bandwidth video, and USB
isn't.

Click to expand...

USB2.0 is pretty much the same speed as 1394. Quite simply, this thing would do a low-res 1-frame per 5 seconds, tethered capture at best. All digital video meant was ... I used DAT like tape to record on as a digital stream. To me, that sucks. If it uses a digital tape, you'd expect to be able to copy the digital data off digitally to a PC. But no, you have to use the camera to squirt it through a PAL encoder to view it and then capture that. I was not impressed. Perhaps others are better, but then this was the best for lens etc. Speaking of which, none of them appeared to go wider than about 48mm effective (in 35mm SLR terms). The Canon S2 is much wider, so there too it has the advantage.

Excal

--
Excal

ljfinger said:

Tom F> said:

I love the RebelXT. I have several other canon lenses.
It was just the size of the 75-300IS I didn't like.
I would much rather carry the S2 instead.

Click to expand...

S2 has only 2/3 the reach of the 75-300IS on the XT and it's 2-3
stops slower. Do you find that limiting?

Click to expand...

How do you figure the 2/3 reach of the S2? The S2 equivalent to 432mm v. 480 for the XT.

And how about the stops?

What am I missing?

Olga

I just came back from South Dakota. Right as I was under Mt. Rushmore my 10-22 gave me an ERROR 99. Switched to the 17-40L. Now the 10-22 and 20D are off to Canon.
--
David
http://members.cox.net/photochef/

excal said:

USB2.0 is pretty much the same speed as 1394.

Click to expand...

That's true, however IEEE1394 is designed to handle isochronous data transmission (which DV uses) while USB isn't, which is why it isn't used.

I take it the camcorder in question had no firewire at all? If so I can understand your frustration...

Hi Bigmac,

Yes! i agree with all you say,

i also have a 'good' copy of the 100-400L IS and i know which Lens i use more - the 70-300DO IS!

my 100-400L is imo slightly sharper at all focal lenghts and with slightly (and i mean slightly) more contrast * but its big, white, and somewhat heavy, and not very discreet!

to my clients and frends that look at the photos from both Lenses they cant tell the difference between the 2 Lenses even when printed to A2 size, thats plain enough for me ...

mind you its not all plain sailing, im now on my 2nd 70-300DO Lens - the 1st was a somewhat soft at 300mm even at f8, and the IS system wasnt giving me that reliable 100% feeling.

my 2nd 70-300DO IS is far better, way sharper and the IS is rock solid all the time, and is now in my top 3 fav Lenses that i carry around.

(i noticed on my 2nd 70-300DO copy that the DO markings etchings on the front glass element are much fainter, and that the front Lens coating has a more brownish? tint that i never noticed on the 1st one??)

its expensive all right, but im really glad that its in my kit bag!

best regards
Michael

bigmack said:

I've never heard a claim that a DO lens would be lower priced,The
advantage is smaller size...I have a 100-400 and a 70-300DO. I've
tested them. At equal FL's they are reasonably close with the
100-400 having a slight edge at longer FL's and obviously 100mm
more reach.After post-processing,in BIG prints the differences are
small.The 70-300 goes a lot of places the 100-400 is just too
inconvenient to take.It's worth every penny I paid for it.

Click to expand...

--
Canon 1Ds mkII at work & 1D mkII
Eos 1v Film SLR now covered in dust, sad but true.....

I didn't give up a lens purchase for it , but bought one as a pocketable "always with me" camera.

Dissapointments are that it cant take an external flash , it doesnt take my CF cards and anything above 100 ISO is noisy. Otherwise in good light it takes marvellous pic and has an excellent range and IS.

Albeit I went up thru the ranks from a Fuji 1300 mppix to a Nikon 995 and then to Canon DSLRS , its hard to get my head back around a TFT screen so tend to use the EFV which is not fantastic. Mine is new , 3 days old , but already has been tried in various situations. I had to shoot and print on vinyl , die cut and dome a bottle of Absolut Vodka for 5000 cocktail menu holders and the S2 did an admirable job. I can take ,my 10D back home from work!! I can also hand it to my wife or 8 yr old kid without agonising.

Make no mistake It's no DSLR but it seems a lot easier to use and set than my Nikon 995 was.I suppose I could have got a Pro 1 or a G6 etc and got more utility , however the lack of expectations from this camera often pleasantly surprises when you do get a good shot and I got plenty in 3 days that are more than acceptable. I tried the Panasonic Fz something and the Sony H1 and didnt like the handling of either or the lack of flip out screen.

I think it all boils what you want , the technically perfect shot or the shot. I think an S2 in the short term is a great alternative to a new lens , however on the plus side , a lens will always be "current" well at least a lot more current than the S2 will be in 3 months time
--
Rodney Gold

The nicest thing about smacking your head against the the wall is.......The feeling you get when you stop

Michael,

I would appreciate knowing what the beginning of the serial number on your second 70-300 DO is to compare with mine. I hadn't heard anything about changes to the optics of this lens. Thank you.
--
Paul

Here you go this why the 70-300 Do makes sense, even if it does not match the 70-200 2.8 quality wise.
Plus the DO is not as conspicuous , big big plus for me.
Didier

Hi Paul,

Yes no problem ..

the beginning of my serial number on my 2nd, 70-300 DO Lens is

0130*

hope this info is of interest to you ?

i dont think there has been any changes to the optics either - just maybe some QA issues?

nowadays some Lenses copies perform better than others from the same Lens family - including the pro and expensive 'L' series, i suppose mass produced by the 100,000s monthly throws up some variences in QA, this just my opinion!

regards
Michael

Paul Grecian said:

Michael,

I would appreciate knowing what the beginning of the serial number
on your second 70-300 DO is to compare with mine. I hadn't heard
anything about changes to the optics of this lens. Thank you.
--
Paul

Click to expand...

--
Canon 1Ds mkII at work & 1D mkII
Eos 1v Film SLR now covered in dust, sad but true.....

boozed said:

boozed said:

USB2.0 is pretty much the same speed as 1394.

Click to expand...

That's true, however IEEE1394 is designed to handle isochronous
data transmission (which DV uses) while USB isn't, which is why it
isn't used.

Click to expand...

USB has had an isochronous mode of operation since day one. But isonchronous is realy aimed at QoS in a live enviroment (eg. voice call). Downloading a data file from a device doesn't need it.

boozed said:

I take it the camcorder in question had no firewire at all? If so
I can understand your frustration...

Click to expand...

No firewire at all. USB2.0 but not for getting at the data on the DAT tape. What were they thinking! Frustration is really the wrong word... more, a disappointment and a feeling a betrayal for misleading sales techniques.

Excal