EOS RT Film Body Question

Hello,

I'm jumping forums just for this question. I usually post in the Canon SLR forum since I own a D-30.

I have a darkroom full of gear, a lot of Oly. I wanted a film body for use with my 16-35 f2.8L. I did some research and it was down to a 3, RT and IIe. I found a mint EOS RT for $250 and bought one on E-bay tonight.

I did this because I wanted to teach my 14 year old daughter how to print in my darkroom and with 3 nice "L" lenses I wanted to shoot with a Canon body.

Did I screw up with the RT.

I know it's not as modern as the IIE, 3, 7 etc. But I understand it was based on the 630 series body with internal steel rails and had a good rep for being well built.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Regards,--Jeff Morris

Adams, Gutmann, Steichen, Stigletz, Weston. they lead by example.

This was the item:

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1332144560&ed=1013991278--Jeff MorrisAdams, Gutmann, Steichen, Stigletz, Weston. they lead by example.

It's a great camera. $250 is what I got mine used for on Usenet. It's a classic too!

To top it off, even with it's old 1st generation AF, it focuses faster than the D30!!!!

I bought mine to do long exposure motion blur work. I'm going to use my D30 as a "Polaroid" and shoot film with the RT. I wanted an Eos 1nRS but the price of a used one is too high for me to justify.

I do not care for the manual exposure interface of the RT however but once I get the exposure from the D30 I won't need to change settings too often.

The Elan or Elan 2 would have been fine bodies as well. I prefer the original Elan for it's amazing quietness. The Elan 2(e) makes a loud mirror slap that sort of annoys me. It is a good body though...

Here are some samples of the long exposure stuff I do with the D30 right now:

http://rocko.csuchico.edu/~teymoor/1015_060801/index.htm

--Teymoor

Jeff Morris said:

Hello,

I'm jumping forums just for this question. I usually post in the
Canon SLR forum since I own a D-30.

I have a darkroom full of gear, a lot of Oly. I wanted a film body
for use with my 16-35 f2.8L. I did some research and it was down
to a 3, RT and IIe. I found a mint EOS RT for $250 and bought one
on E-bay tonight.

I did this because I wanted to teach my 14 year old daughter how to
print in my darkroom and with 3 nice "L" lenses I wanted to shoot
with a Canon body.

Did I screw up with the RT.

I know it's not as modern as the IIE, 3, 7 etc. But I understand
it was based on the 630 series body with internal steel rails and
had a good rep for being well built.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Regards,
--
Jeff Morris

Adams, Gutmann, Steichen, Stigletz, Weston. they lead by example.

Click to expand...

One more note; If Canon had put a pellicle mirror in the Eos 1D, I'd have bought one the day it came out... Maybe the D60 will have a pellicle mirror! Well, I can dream.

--Teymoor

Teymoor said:

To top it off, even with it's old 1st generation AF, it focuses
faster than the D30!!!!

I bought mine to do long exposure motion blur work. I'm going to
use my D30 as a "Polaroid" and shoot film with the RT. I wanted an
Eos 1nRS but the price of a used one is too high for me to justify.

I do not care for the manual exposure interface of the RT however
but once I get the exposure from the D30 I won't need to change
settings too often.

The Elan or Elan 2 would have been fine bodies as well. I prefer
the original Elan for it's amazing quietness. The Elan 2(e) makes a
loud mirror slap that sort of annoys me. It is a good body though...

Here are some samples of the long exposure stuff I do with the D30
right now:

http://rocko.csuchico.edu/~teymoor/1015_060801/index.htm

--Teymoor

Jeff Morris said:

Hello,

I'm jumping forums just for this question. I usually post in the
Canon SLR forum since I own a D-30.

I have a darkroom full of gear, a lot of Oly. I wanted a film body
for use with my 16-35 f2.8L. I did some research and it was down
to a 3, RT and IIe. I found a mint EOS RT for $250 and bought one
on E-bay tonight.

I did this because I wanted to teach my 14 year old daughter how to
print in my darkroom and with 3 nice "L" lenses I wanted to shoot
with a Canon body.

Did I screw up with the RT.

I know it's not as modern as the IIE, 3, 7 etc. But I understand
it was based on the 630 series body with internal steel rails and
had a good rep for being well built.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Regards,
--
Jeff Morris

Adams, Gutmann, Steichen, Stigletz, Weston. they lead by example.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Thanks Teymoor,

Since I received my D-30 I have shot very little film. I think that will change.--Jeff MorrisAdams, Gutmann, Steichen, Stigletz, Weston. they lead by example.

yes, great camera! very solid. 5 frames a second which is still almost unriveled by cameras without an extra booster. the pelicle mirror along with 2nd curtain synch are two of the main reasons why i bought my pair. exactly for doing the kind of long exposure stuff taymoor is doing and being able to follow the action while doing it. you can also do some in camera dodging if need be on long exposures, generally a cityscape on a tripod

i have a lot of stuff similar to taymoor (most of it not scanned), even of the same subjects. not only with motion blur and light streaks, but using the stroboscopic feature of the flash along with moving or rotating the camera or following a moving subject

this was rotating for light streaks then firing the flash



stroboscopic



this might have actually been with my old F1... i guess the pelicle mirror isn't really needed for a zoom blur on a tripod, but here it is..

ah, NICE photos Aaron! Me like! That's exactly what I'm having fun with these days. Painting with light. Since it's kinda hard to get the light to move around the canvas, why not make the canvas move under the light?!!! It sure makes it easier when you can see the entire exposure.

You should scan more stuff. I'd like to see. Are you shooting slides? I just picked up an LS2000 with bulk slide loader so I can scan lots of my old slides from parties that I have been neglecting since I got my D30. I finally developed a roll of B/W (actually T400-CN) from my RZ67 just a few days ago. First roll of film developed since October 2000 when I got my D30. I have shot other rolls of film, but they are just sitting growing new and exciting color characteristics as I let them age.

--Teymoor--

sig say - " Pay me and I'll shoot film... $-) "

aaron said:

yes, great camera! very solid. 5 frames a second which is still
almost unriveled by cameras without an extra booster. the pelicle
mirror along with 2nd curtain synch are two of the main reasons why
i bought my pair. exactly for doing the kind of long exposure stuff
taymoor is doing and being able to follow the action while doing
it. you can also do some in camera dodging if need be on long
exposures, generally a cityscape on a tripod

i have a lot of stuff similar to taymoor (most of it not scanned),
even of the same subjects. not only with motion blur and light
streaks, but using the stroboscopic feature of the flash along with
moving or rotating the camera or following a moving subject

this was rotating for light streaks then firing the flash
members.aol.com/fabshorty/images/dave%20yow%20jesus%20lizard.jpg

stroboscopic
members.aol.com/fabshorty/images/ziam%20copy.jpg

this might have actually been with my old F1... i guess the pelicle
mirror isn't really needed for a zoom blur on a tripod, but here it
is..
members.aol.com/fabshorty/images/zoom%20bridge%20copy.jpg

Click to expand...

Jeff Morris said:

Did I screw up with the RT.

I know it's not as modern as the IIE, 3, 7 etc. But I understand
it was based on the 630 series body with internal steel rails and
had a good rep for being well built.

Click to expand...

I dont think you screwed up. I own an RT & a 3. I love the RT. It's light, small and very quiet. Its built like a tank, and has all the features you would need in a camera body. (except mirror lock up! lol)

It only has a single focus point, but it is a cross sensor type so any lenses with 2.8 or faster should focus fairly quickly. In RT mode, it has the 2nd fastest shutter lag time of any SLR (8ms) - beaten only by the 1nRS (6ms)

The only downsides is that you loose 2/3 of a stop of light from the mirror, and the viewfinder can be slightly darker than normal. Also, I dont think you cannot use any of the interchangable focus screens.
Enjoy!

• Stuart

I had an RT for years, but left it on a plane to Rome a few months ago. Just got a replacement: a used RT from E-Bay.

I particularly liked the RT for shooting ballet. With a tripod or bracing a camera against a wall, I could get sharp pictures at very low shutter speeds. Remember, there is no mirror slap.

Since losing my first RT, I have acquired Canon's 85mm f1.8, and am looking forward to trying the combination in theater and ballet settings.
Hardly my primary 35 mm camera, but I love it for what it does best!

Stuart Robins said:

It's light, small and very quiet. Its built like a tank

Click to expand...

hmm, i don't find them very light. but i like that, going from the F1 to the RT wasn't as hard as it would have been if it was a light plasticky feeling camera

Stuart Robins said:

The only downsides is that you loose 2/3 of a stop of light from
the mirror, and the viewfinder can be slightly darker than normal.

Click to expand...

i've still never understood that, if the mirror allows 2/3 of the light through and reflects 1/3 to the prism then why aren't you losing only a 3rd stop instead of 2/3???

Stuart Robins said:

Also, I dont think you cannot use any of the interchangable focus
screens.

Click to expand...

actually you can, but they're probably hard to find at this point since all the 600 cameras are so far out of production. i put the split image microprism screens in mine

Teymoor said:

ah, NICE photos Aaron! Me like!

Click to expand...

thanks teymoor! I like yours as well!

That's exactly what I'm having fun

Teymoor said:

with these days. Painting with light. Since it's kinda hard to get
the light to move around the canvas, why not make the canvas move
under the light?!!! It sure makes it easier when you can see the
entire exposure.

Click to expand...

indeed, especially if you're doing really long exposures with flash at the end, you can follow your subject and put them where you want in the frame. i do that on bulb of course to have control over the moment of the flash

Teymoor said:

You should scan more stuff. I'd like to see. Are you shooting
slides? I just picked up an LS2000 with bulk slide loader so I can
scan lots of my old slides from parties that I have been neglecting
since I got my D30.

Click to expand...

yes, i should, but a. i'm lazy! and b. my slide scanner simply sucks! i can get some good scans, but not always, especially high contrast ones with dense shadows, i know that goes for all scanners, but this one is really bad. soon i hope to get a sprintscan 4000 with silverfast. i'm not actually shooting much chrome recently, but i'll need the scanner to get a ton of old stuff onto the computer, and probably to scan some negs too. my flatbed does a decent job scanning prints, but unless you make a custum print to scan from you're losing too much on any scene that's not "average"

I finally developed a roll of B/W (actually

Teymoor said:

T400-CN) from my RZ67 just a few days ago. First roll of film
developed since October 2000 when I got my D30. I have shot other
rolls of film, but they are just sitting growing new and exciting
color characteristics as I let them age.

Click to expand...

haha! well i still don't have a digital yet, but i'm embarrased to say how much "curing" shot film i have laying around! it will certainly be fun and full of surprises when i get around to processing most of it! some of it is labelled though