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Another Which Camera Question. Anonymous
Hey /p/

Sorry to bother you with yet another "which camera should I buy" thread but I hope mine to be a bit more specific than most.

I am a semi-serious photographer and want to get into serious photography. I currently have a Canon Powershot A80 which I have had for quite some time and having just about mastered it and pushed it to it full ability I want to upgrade.

I am looking to join my friend who runs his own wedding videography business as a wedding photographer (free and just to learn at first but paid work later) but I would also like to dabble in creative photography.

I would be shooting mainly cars(both still and racing/drifting), fireworks and sunsets, glamour shots, car headlights and city lights as well as some buildings and hopefully... some nudes lol :P. So any advice on camera makes or models and lenses to suit would be sweet.

A colleague told me about curtain sync and resync flash and explained that if I was to take a photo of someone firetwirling with a long exposure i could get the fire trail and then have the flash go off at the end of the exposure as opposed to the first and have the person illuminated in the frame also. OR I could have the longer exposure to illuminate a dark background and then a later flash in order to illuminate the foreground.... Is this feature worth having? does it serve any other purpose? can someone explain wtf it actually does lol.

I was looking in the Canon SLR range and noticed that neither the 400D or the 30D have such features and this kinda put me off... I've always liked canon.. perhaps because I have never had any other brand. Perhaps someone could shed some light on the differences between brands and ultimately whether I should stick with the 30D without the flash feature or go for a different brand/model.

My budget is close to the Price of the Canon 30D (relative in each country of course).
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>> Duke
I'm not so much an expert in Canon SLRs (but only because it's not in my price range yet), but I do know they are very solid SLR cameras. However, if you're not devoted to Canon, Nikon makes some great SLRs too.
>> Kawauso
The usual advice for DSLRs goes something along the lines of "whatever feels best in your hand". The 30D is definitely bulkier than the 400D from what I've heard, but has some features that set it apart form the 400D which you may or may not want. I would've thought both are quite capable of syncing flash to the start or end of exposure though.
>> Anonymous
I was under the impression that 2nd curtain sync was a standard feature on all DSLRs, I even had it on my old p&s, a Canon G3. On the 30D/400D it is relegated to custom function 15 and 9 respectively.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos30d/page10.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos400d/page11.asp

I did a little test with my 350D and it acts a little strange with the option set. The flash fires as expected before the second curtain but also fires before the 1st curtain which I'm assuming is to evaluate how much light to emit. I worked that out from enabling mirror lockup and the flash fires immediately when the shutter release is pressed the first time but not the second for the actual shot.
>> Anonymous
>>33686

I forgot to add, the purpose of the 2nd curtain sync in my mind is to capture motion in forward chronological order. Imagine the fire twirler walking towards you. If the flash fired first the picture will look like they were walking backwards, not to mention a little strange as the flame trails will be in the opposite direction. Or perhaps at a night rally, the 2nd curtain flash will make the light trails from a car appear behind it rather than in front.

Another one is to control human subjects in dark areas. People tend to move as soon as the flash fires so if you want to get the background without a ghost walking out of the frame the 2nd curtain sync will help.

For most applications though, it probably won't matter ;)
>> Anonymous
Hi OP here.

Thanks for the advice.... You're right about the "whatever feels best for your hand" in a way. The 400D is too small and cramped for my hand :( I havn't held a 30D so i hope its a bit better.
>> Anonymous
Go to a BestBuy and ask to hold the 400D with a battery grip. Before, I never wanted a XTI because it felt so horrible, but then one night I got bored and put the battery grip on at work and it felt so much better.