New camera!

[Maisie]

There I was, lurking in the greenhouse on Sunday, taking photos of the starling hordes bathing and feeding on the garden path, when suddenly my trusty Canon EOS 10D shows "Err 99" :eek: I swapped CF cards, lenses, batteries... all to no avail. As I locked up the mirror to try to clean the sensor, I saw that the shutter curtain was still closed. So... shutter failure then :( It's apparently a common problem with the 10D and 300D. This weekend is the biggest photography weekend in my calendar with the chance of getting some night motorsport practice, so I didn't want to have my camera somewhere being repaired! After doing some research, it seemed I'd be paying a couple of hundred quid for a shutter mechanism anyway.. so I did what seemed to be the only sensible thing and had a VERY expensive lunchbreak (the kind where your bank rings you up afterwards to make sure no-one's stolen your credit card!) on Monday and bought myself a 30D. I've only spent limited time so far, mostly in auto mode, in the garden, but I have to say I'm thrilled with it! The colours and vibrancy of the picture are just heaps better than the 10D. Bootup time is faster, and focusing and shooting are incredibly fast by comparison!

Here's a sample so far. The cutdown version doesn't show the shimmering water on the wings in the first pic as much as the original, but I hope you get the idea!

[Gandalf]

Looks like the 30D will serve you well Maisie. Nice test shots.

[Shamal]

Not to mention that lovely big lcd montor on the back for reviewing your photos ;) The 30d is a major leap from the 10d with lots of new goodies. If you had gone from a 20d to a 30d, there wouldn't have been as much to get excitied about.
Have fun.

Shamal

[Georgieone]

Lovely Trial Shots - all the best with the new camera.

[barn owl]

cracking maisie, good job there.

[dougied]

That was a very expensive lunchbreak Mazie, but judging by the photos, worth every penny.