A Chicken Vulture!

I noticed The Dish was open again on Saturday and we decided to take a walk around yesterday to see what devastation the fires caused. The good news is that the fires didn't spread too far, the bad news is that the area will bear a dark scar for a while. I think I'll use my observations and photos from that walk for my second entry in my article series, so stay tuned.


Now, about that photo above. There's a funny story about that...

My family (my wife, son, and daughter) were walking on the path when my wife pointed at a big brown bird and the following conversation occurred:

Her: "Hey look." [quietly, while jabbing my shoulder] "A chicken... No, a rooster."

Me: "A turkey!" [pause] "A turkey vulture!"

[much laughing]

Me: "A chicken vulture!"

[more laughing, maybe we were just lightheaded from the walk]

During this conversation, I happened to have my 70-200mm reading and on the camera, so I managed to fire off a few shots before the chicken turkey vulture flew away. Sadly, I missed the focus on a few of them (I swear there is something up with this 20D) but a few came out ok.

The lighting and my angle wasn't ideal. The conversation (and the timing of the conversation) was hilarious.

Oh, and this is what it looks like when a turkey vulture flies away.


For as big (and fat) as it looked on the ground, it was very graceful in the air. I can only assume it was in the area looking for toasted animals from the fire.

Review: Canon 20D

So I finally got around to this review. It has been a long time coming, and I apologize in advance if you expected more. If you need nitty-gritty specifications, there are already a ton of nice reviews out there (some of them are listed on my camera body comparison page). These are mostly my personal impressions of the camera after upgrading from a 350D (Digital Rebel XT).

As you probably know, I bought a refurbished 20D from eBay for $640 and added a $55 SquareTrade warranty to it. I'll provide a color-coded list with illustrations (green means something good about the 20D, red means something bad):

• User Interface. I can't tell you how much it helps to have the thumbwheel on the back of the 20D. It makes everything more efficient, from manual mode to setting ISO. The best part is menu navigation: now I can zoom through the menu with a flick of my thumb. Even the little buttons seem to have a better feel. When I picked up the 350D recently the buttons seemed really cheap.
• Improved Shutter. The faster (and supposedly more reliable) shutter is a big reason to upgrade, and I noticed it immediately. Not only is there less black-out time, but there is less shutter lag. My first few shots I had a distinct feeling of "Whoa, it's already done?". The improved shutter also allows a 1/8000 sec shutter speed and a 1/250 sec sync speed, relatively minor increases, but they'll help in extreme situations. The side effect is a very loud (but reassuring) sound.
• Improved Viewfinder. This is another must have aspect of the 20D. The 20D viewfinder is definitely larger and brighter than the 350D. It also seems to be less finicky about viewing angle (if my eye isn't perfectly centered on the 350D I start seeing shadows creep in). Since I spend so much time looking through the thing, I'm very excited that I'll have a clearer, larger view. The improved focusing screen actually seems to make a difference too.
  
• Glitchy Autofocus. The jury is still out on this, but I think the autofocus on my 20D is pretty crappy. It seems like I have more trouble getting it to focus, which is surprising since that it one of the big advantages of the 20D over the 350D. Currently, I'd say the 350D does a better job of focusing than my 20D. Specifically, thin objects have given me a ton of trouble with hunting and just generally missing focus, even when the focus area is right on it. I'm planning on giving the focus system a thorough test in the near future and reporting the results here (and sending the camera to Canon for repairs if necessary). From what I have read, it is very common for 20Ds to have autofocus problems.
• Size and Handling. Although the 20D is larger and heavier, it is much more comfortable in my hand. I picked up the 350D the other day to take the pictures that accompany this review and got an instant hand cramp. While the 20D seemed tiny in it's box, it felt like a monster when I picked it up since I was used to the 350D. Either way, I really enjoy the way it feels in my hands (FYI, I'm 5'9", 175 lbs with average build).
• Sensor. The sensor is, in my estimation, no better (or worse) than the 350D. Not that I expected anything, but when you pay this much more for a camera, you hope for a slight improvement. Overall, I've gotten good images with it, although I feel like long exposures (>10 seconds) are worse than the 20D.
  
• Incompatibility with 350D accessories. While I understand the motivation, it annoys me that I have to buy new batteries and a new remote release for the 20D. At least it has a PC jack though. But I still miss the 3.5mm shutter release jack that let me make my own remote releases.
  
• 5 FPS. A big selling point of the 20D is the increased continuous shooting speed of 5 FPS instead of 3 FPS. And boy do you notice. The downside is you'll fill your buffer in a little over a second if you shoot RAW (something that is alleviated in the 30D). And I wouldn't mind a 3 FPS option, but I really do like this feature. It makes you feel so powerful to shoot a fast string of photos (even if they are all almost identical). Once I get a chance to shoot some sports, I'll be able to give a better report.
  
• Durability. While the magnesium panels probably don't improve the strength of the camera as much as they claim, the 20D definitely feels like a more solid camera. In particular, the CF door on the 350D always felt cheap and moved around a little bit underneath my palm. The 20D has none of that.
• Status LCD on the top instead of the back. I had no idea how much this would bug me, but I find the top LCD very annoying. After all, I'm usually looking at the back of the camera anyway (to look through the viewfinder) and so I really have to move away from the viewfinder and shift my head to set the ISO, auto focus, etc. Even worse, if I have it on a tall tripod, I can't see the status at all. Very annoying.
• On/Off button location. This is a minor gripe, but I really liked the location of the XT power switch. Since it was right under my right thumb, I could pop it on and get it into place in a split second. The 20D location is a lot less convenient, but with auto-shutoff, I guess I shouldn't stress too much.
  

So, overall, I'm very happy with the purchase. Other than a few minor UI annoyances, the only major drawback of the 20D is the autofocus, which I really need to evaluate.

And, just to prove it is really a refurb, here's the box.

Phew!

We've got a place to live and have signed the lease. We'll move in around August 1st.

Sorry, no pictures with this quick post.

And I haven't picked up a camera (other than taking some 20D pics) in over a week. Hopefully I can finally carve out some time to take some pictures. Walking around with the camera is such a great stress reliever and I really miss it.

I Hate Rebates!

I finally got around to getting some pictures of my 20D tonight. Hopefully I'll get around to the review later this week, but don't hold your breath, because our apartment search is going full speed. Soon though.

While I was at it, I figured I'd get out the rebate paperwork for the Kingston CF cards. And I realized the rebates needed to be postmarked by 14 days after the purchase date. Crap!

That is why I hate rebates (other than the instant kind). There are so many ways to screw it up, and then even if you send it in correctly, you may never see any money. That has happened to me more than once. If only I had opened all the materials when I received the cards, I would have avoided a $30 loss. At least the cards work well.

SquareTrade Warranty... DONE.

Long time no posts (for me at least). The image at the top of this post is an outtake from the Dreams challenge at DPC. The fly pretty much killed what could have been a pretty good picture (kind of sums up my week).

There was a bunch of stuff going on this week, including:

• The DPL playoffs. I tanked and had some bad entries, but the rest of my team turned in our best week yet. We're still not convinced we'll beat the Ribbon Hogs though.
• Major time on the part-time job. Suddenly, I've gone from 2 hours of tutoring a week to almost thirty hours a week (including tutoring, teaching, and proctoring). That, along with my PhD research (and my third job, which I've knocked down to a few hours a week) has me spread pretty thin.
• Apartment hunting. It looks like we'll actually be kicked off campus this summer (it has been threatened the past few years but this time it looks like it will likely happen). Nothing bad, I'm just out of priority years (a ten year PhD will do that to you). What's worse is the rent at the cheap places is still well more than 50% of our income (even with our five jobs). But we have a plan.
• Family shoots and editing. Last weekend I had two shoots, and I also had two families leaving the area this week so I had to rush to get most of their shots edited.
  

Sadly, it doesn't look like the rest of the summer will be much better, but the stress level will go down a lot once we know where we will live.

In other news:

• The 20D is working out nicely. Look for my initial review in the next week or so (I just need to get some time). Review summary: I really like it, although it has a few things that bug me.
• I got the Kingston 2GB Cards and extra battery. So I'm pretty set up with the 20D now. I still need to submit the Kingston rebate though!
• I've been rethinking the decision to start a photography business. I can put in a lot more hours (with less overhead) doing SAT tutoring, and with the move off-campus, it might be more work that I'd like. Expect a post on this soon. I'm not planning to abandon the idea, just scale it down a ton and do it more for fun.
• We have an ant colony in our minivan. Never thought it could happen, but it did. Two weeks ago we found a bunch of ants in the van, cleaned it out, and I assumed that they'd just found their way to the food droppings my kids had left everywhere. We didn't see too many after that, but this week I left a wrapper on the passenger seat and two hours later ten ants were on it. Ant traps were put in the van that night, and I haven't seen any ants in the van since.
  
• I've finally decided on the SquareTrade warranty...

Yup, it took me a while, but I decided to get the SquareTrade warranty for my refurbished 20D right before the offer expired tomorrow. It was a pretty close decision, honestly, and I only really decided about an hour ago. Yesterday, I was planning on not doing it :) But, today I went ahead and spent the $55 (I had a 10% off code).

This is my reasoning:

• Mathematically, it is about the same either way. Obviously, SquareTrade can't make money off the warranties if, on average, people need a replacement item over 10% of the time. Ignoring cases where the user breaks the camera, I'd say most electronics items will break less than 10% of the time if you exclude the first 60 days of use. But, I have to figure a digital camera (especially an SLR with a fast moving mirror and shutter, plus many buttons) will tend to break more often. Plus, I'll be using the camera more than the average consumer, so that pushes it in my direction too. Overall, I thought it'd be about the same: either I insure it myself and save a small amount of money now (but risk more later if it breaks) or I do the SquareTrade warranty and pay a little now to avoid more later.
• I trust SquareTrade. It is obvious they care about their PR, so they aren't going to risk screwing over consumers on technicalities.
• The 20D is refurbished. Realistically, I don't know what has been done to the camera in the past, or how much use it has gotten. If it was a new camera, the Canon warranty would probably be enough for me. But since it is a refurb, I like that extra security.
  
• They have a refund policy. My biggest concern is the decent risk that I (or someone I know) will accidentally break the camera. In that case, the money I put towards the warranty would be lost... except they offer a refund: "REFUND POLICY: We will provide you with a full refund if you cancel your Service Agreement within 60 days of the purchase of your item. If you choose to cancel your Service Agreement after the first 60 days, we will pro-rate your refund based on how much time has passed. You can also transfer your Service Agreement at no cost." (from their website) So the only time I lose money is if my refurbished 20D stands up to heavy use over the next two years. Which isn't really a loss in my book.
  
• I had the 10% off offer. Silly, but that extra $6 off pushed me towards the purchase and made the math work.
  

So, in summary, I spent about $700 total on a refurbished Canon 20D which will be under warranty for a little over 2 years. The first 90 days will be the Canon warranty, and after that, it will be SquareTrade. I absolutely trust SquareTrade because they have learned the hard way that customer service is what defines a warranty company. And hey, if I break it, I can always get the remaining money back.

Oh, and of course, if something breaks and I end up contacting SquareTrade, you can bet I'll post here about it. Likewise, if you have an interesting SquareTrade experience, post a comment!