Canon D10 Set Up Advice

[videointhesky 0]

I am working on my Canon D10 Parts & Accessions list

Canon D10 body $1500.00
Canon 20mm f 2.8 USM EF lens $529.00
Ground Lens ??
Lens Filters SKY, UV, Circular Polarizer
Canon Remote RS-80NS $50.00
Canon D10 Battery BP-511 $50.00
Canon Flash 550EX $500.00
Flash Cable to Quantum Battery $ ??
Memory ???

What did I forget? What Memory Card should I get?
What lens would work for ground shots ? What is the best way to preview the D10 shots at the DZ ?

Thanks for any help or advice

[newshooter12 0]

I've never used a sigma lens on a Canon body, but have heard and seen some really good stuff from Sigma lens on Nikon bodies. It'll save you a pretty good buck... just a thought.
A zoom lens like an 80-200mm f 2.8 is hard to go wrong with as an all-around lens for work on the ground. Plus with the 1.6x conversion factor you'll get a little more out of it on the long end. Don't forget the tongue or bite switch for the air... and Lexar makes good memory cards with fast transfer rates.

hope this helps.
matt

[hoym 0]

Your list includes almost every thing that I bought this spring when the 10D came out and I switched from film to digital.

Some other things that I bought as well.

The one thing that I don't see on your list that I really like is a flash card reader. They are not too expensive. I think I paid around $20 for mine. It's a Dazzle brand but I think any brand would work fine.

I bought two 512 flash cards. I'd pay more attention to the speed of the flash card if I had it to do over again. There are 45x cards available now. I wouldn't get smaller than 512 and if I had it to do over again, I might even go for two of the 1 gig cards. I can store almost 200 high res jpegs on a 512 card. I'd like to shoot in RAW but the transfer of that much data to the card makes it too slow so for freefall I don't shoot in RAW format.

I bought a second RS-80NS cable as a backup in case the first one breaks. (Ask Deuce)

I bought the 28-135 Canon IS USM lens. I wish I had bought a longer one though for ground stuff. Maybe at least a 200.

I bought a new computer to go along with this. 2.6ghz, 1.5gig RAM, 80GB HD and then added a second 80GB HD.

I bought an 18inch flat screen LCD monitor to go with it but I don't think the LCD screens are quite there yet. I bought an OptiCAL Spyder to calibrate the monitor and I've had a hard time getting it to calibrate as exactly as I think it should. I think the CRT type of monitors will still calibrate more accurately. My older CRT is easier to calibrate and I think it is more accurate. I am very much NOT an expert in this but have learned a lot this year.

Also bought Photoshop 7.0 but again, for the entry level that I am at, I think that the Photoshop Elements that came with the 10D would have worked fine. So I don't think I'd buy that (at least for now) if I had it to do again.

From BreezeSystems, I bought both their Downloader Pro and BreezeBrowser software.
http://www.breezesys.com/

I learned about these from spending a lot of time in the very early spring reading on www.dpreview.com. There is a lot of good digital camera information there.

There is a ton of software out there and I've downloaded some of the trial version but I haven't had time to try it out yet.

Another thing that I'm planning to buy is a book or two on Photoshop for photographers.

Oh yeah, I also bought a new Bonehead FTPro and top mounted the 10D. It was too much camera for my old helmet.

Another thing I did was just keep telling my wife, "It's okay, it will pay for itself. It'll make money, really. It's an investment. You have to spend money to make money right?" yada, yada, yada...

Good luck. You will fall in love with the camera.

[fasterfaller 0]

For memory I will only use Transcend 30x or faster or Lexar 40x or faster . You can get cheaper cards but you will be very upset when you can't get the shot because your cf card cant keep up . I use Transcend and lexar cards and both are working very well in a commercial photography environment . Even when shooting my 1ds both of these cards keep up . I have tested just about every brand and compared to transcend and lexar the rest are slow .

[Deuce 1]

My ground lens is the 28-200. Quade uses that one too. Look at some of his landing pics, very nice.

What kind of flying are you going to do? If you are a hardcore freeflier, you might want to go with a 14. For tandems and RW the 20 is good.

[videointhesky 0]

I am a Hardcore RW Flyer with Tandem. Lately I have been doing Camera Flying for an 8 way team. I have been using a Minolta 35mm with a 35mm lens, which has been working well for the most part but on exit I could have just a bit wider lens. I have cut the lowest guy in half so I think
the 20mm lens & D10 would fix my problem.


Question
I have always used a hand shutter release for my still camera's 35mm & 645. I was looking for a shutter release for the D10 and it is only 2.6 ft.
Is there a release for the D10 longer than 2.6 ft?


Thanks to all so far with the help and advice with the D10 Set Up

[teamhypoxia 0]

There's an extension cord for the remote release. ET-1000N3 it's about 33 ft. long though so.....

http://www.canoncompanystore.com/cgi-bin/annex.storefront

[videointhesky 0]

I have my D10. Now I can be Digital Cool Too
I will have to wait for a day to get the 20mm lens, Remote, Lexar 40x 512 memory card from B&H Photo. The Canon Flash 550EX is next on my list


Thanks for all of the help & advice