Bought a charger and batteries for a Panasonic LX100. Everything works flawlessly.

My daughter lives in Chicago so that is not an option but searching out a friend who works as a small business or is home all day is a good suggestion.

This is the second refurb camera I bought (although I still haven't received the second one) and yes, I saved a lot of money. I have no issue with the products. They look and work like new. I was able to change delivery options when I bought my 6D several years ago. Canon has changed their policy since then. As several people suggested, in the future, I would not order online. I would order by phone and see if they can set up delivery to allow the package to be held at a FEDEX office.

I work for a very large company that has thousands of employees and many buildings with people that deliver stuff from the various shipping docks to your desk. It's always been a challenge to receive anything that was shipped to me for work, let alone personal items. I'd rather take my chances on the porch. My daughter works at a small company and that works great for her but it's not so good for me.

I posted this, in part, to vent my frustration but to also to inform people that CD has such a restrictive shipping policy in place. I did place the order online so I did not talk to anyone about changing shipping options. I didn't know i could do that. I did read the shipping information. I simply says that they ship to a real address, not a PO box, and that a signature may be required. I am happy that Canon requires a signature for delivery because I think theft of packages from people's porches is a real problem. This is the first item I have ordered online where the seller prohibits the customer from taking advantage of the carrier's delivery options. FEDEX and UPS normally allow you to hold the shipment at a facility of your choice where you would have to sign for it to pick it up. I think that's a reasonable option to have that protects both the seller and the customer. I didn't know CD policy prohibits this and that the policy information is not readily available on their website. I suspect that many others do not know that either.

I bought a camera from Canon Direct. It was shipped FEDEX but I was not allowed to have the shipment held for me at a FEDEX office using the FEDEX delivery website. (The options are grayed out.) I am not home during the day. I work long hours and of course, the delivery attempt failed because there was no one there to sign for the package. I spent time on the phone with Canon and with FEDEX only to find out that it is a Canon policy to not allow the customer to change delivery options. I was supposed to call Canon back after the delivery attempt to have the package held. They said they would call FEDEX to arrange it. Later that day, I received a an email saying that delivery would be attempted the next day so I guess my call to Canon did not work. I then called FEDEX and thankfully, they held the shipment. It has now been delayed two days and I have to pick it up at a FEDEX facility 25 min away, hopefully tomorrow. This shipping policy is ridiculous. I have packages held for all my more expensive items. This is the only time I could not schedule my delivery. I will never buy another item from Canon Direct again because of their inflexible and inconvenient delivery policy.

I purchased a used LX100 from B&H last year. (it looked brand new!) It's a great camera - full manual controls and a viewfinder. It is very solidly built. I had a Sony RX100 which is truly a pocket camera. The LX100 is quite a bit larger and will not fit in your pocket, however, it is still very small as compared to any DSLR and is great fro travel. The 4K video is a nice feature and produces good stills. I am very happy with the camera and quality of the pictures.

A split cable with only one device is just like not having a split cable. The cable itself does not draw power or have any interaction with the CAN network.

Hi Jerry,

In addition to being an amateur photographer, I am responsible for OBD-II systems at a major US car manufacturer. The OBD data port was only designed to work with a single device - a scan tool used to repair the vehicle. The OBD data is specified by the government. OBD scan tool requests use a specified, high priority CAN ID on the data bus. Many external devices are now being plugged into the OBD data port. This can cause various problems.

If the vehicle is equipped with internal devices (e.g. telematics gateways, data loggers), these devices will defer to data requests made with the high priority standardized OBD CAN IDs. These devices will therefore not get the data they are supposed to store, possibly causing built in customer functions to stop working as long as the external devices are connected. For example, you can't get a vehicle health report from SYNC if an insurance dongle is plugged in.

If the attached devices sends diagnostic requests, this may disturb the vehicle functionality, e.g. sending a "Clear trouble codes" request while the engine is running may cause some diagnostic monitors to make an incorrect judgments.

If the attached devices include a split-cable, two external devices may be connected at the same time utilizing the same CAN-ID. If those devices do not detect the presence of the other device and try to communicate at same time they may cause CAN collisions which will cause the CAN Bus to turn off. The devices will also receive unsolicited messages because they will see the responses for the request the other device has sent or no response since each control unit in the vehicle can only handle one request per time.

So the answer is that it may or may not work, depending on what you plug in, how each device operates and how your vehicle operates.

I have purchased several items from 42nd st photo over the last few years. I just bought a Sony RX100 last month. They have always delivered the correct product with full US warranty in a reasonable time. They will call you and try to sell you batteries and memory cards which I have always declined to buy. I would buy from them again. They always seem to have the best prices and I have never had a problem with them.

I have a similar situation as you. I shoot dance competitions and sports in dismally lit auditoriums and gyms. I shoot with a 7D so I get a bit of noise at higher ISOs which is easy to deal with in Lightroom as long as the pictures are in focus. I purchased the 70-200 Sigma OS and have been using it for several years. I would have gotten the Canon 70-200 if money was no object but I could not afford the extra $1000 for the Canon over the Sigma. The Sigma is a great lens and I have no regrets. It focuses quickly and quietly and is very sharp as long as you aren't shooting wide open at f2.8 where it can be a little soft. You will be shooting at 1/250 or 1/320 to avoid motion blur so I agree that OS is not that important, however, I use this lens in many other situations where OS does come in handy so it is really nice to have. Before I bought the Sigma 70-200, I used a Canon 85 mm f1.8 for dance pictures. It is a fantastic lens for under $400. It is extremely sharp and the f1.8 lets you shoot at 1/320 in almost any situation. You will have to move around the auditorium for solo dances versus group dances because you can't zoom but the picture quality is great. It's also a great portrait lens.

I have taken a lot of dance and cheer photos. I recommend that you shoot in shutter priority mode and set your shutter speed to 1/250 or 1/320 if there is enough light. I use a Sigma 70-200 f2.8 and most of the time I'm shooting wide open at f2.8 or f3.5. Set your ISO to 800 or up to 1600. 1600 is really pushing in on my 7D but you can fix noise in post processing, you can't fix blur. Turn Auto White Balance off and set the White Balance to tungsten light. Most likely this will be the right setting in an auditorium. Set the focus to use only the center focus point only. Your center point is probably on the dancer, but the other focus points may be on the backdrop. You want the camera to focus on the dancer, not the backdrop. Set the light metering mode to Partial Metering. This is the best mode to use if the background and the subject have a large contrast, e.g. bright costume on a dark background.

These are a few pictures I took last weekend.

Neil van Niekerk has some great bounce flash tutorials on his web site at http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/

It's amazing what you can do with an on-camera flash if you can bounce it.

I have been very happy with the Sigma 70-200mm f2.8. It is considerably less expensive than the Canon equivalent. (I paid $1300 for mine.) It has stabilization which you don't really need for sports since you need to be shooting at least 1/250 sec, however, it's a nice feature to have for other situations where your subjects are not moving so fast. You can add a Sigma 1.4 converter later and get yourself a 280 mm lens with only the loss of 1 f-stop.

Thanks. Just like picsbywayne, I'll shoot 1500 to 2000 pics a day during a dance competition. I love watching my daughter and the other girls from the studio perform. What they can do athletically and emotionally is incredible. I love being able to capture that for them in a picture. Have fun shooting!