So your going to make me show my age again. In High School our main camera was a 4x5 speed graphic. Early 70ies I used 4x5 calumet view camera in school. I worked in a Studio for a year and used 8x10 deardorf camera. The studio had a 20x24 process camera. We make 8x10 and 11xx14 b&w copy negatives to contact print. Also a lot of ortho line film up 20x24. I still own my calumet 4x5 with a el nikor 240mm lens.

Nothing like a view camera with full swings and tilt movements!

Most of my photography is scenic, or portraits indoor or out door, some table top. I use a flash meter, an Incident meter and a spot meter all hand held. With the spot meter I can pick mid tones, high and low tones to get the exposure I want. With Incident I get a middle gray 18% reading and I let the others fall where they do. I find I have to do less work in post with a hand held meter.

I agree with you when shooting birds, wildlife at a distance trusting your camera is best. Hand held meter would be useless if a fast changing environment.

A meter in your hand is worth 2 in a camera.

I have several meters. My favorite for film, mainly B&W is my pentex 1 degree spot meter. I have an old sekonic incident light meter I used for color and a sekonic 3 series flash meter. When doing outdoor portraits or studio shooting I like to meter. I just never trust the ones in camera for critical work. I like to get it as close possible in Camera, less work in post. I recently bought a Sekonic 4 series that will trigger my mono lights as well from meter. I Love this meter esp. for out door portraits with fill light or keeping dark back grounds.

I fully agree with you on ink for the printers. As far as paper goes there is a lot more choices, sizes, and quality to choose from with aftermarket 3rd parties.

A work around is Download Adobe Digital DNG converter. you can convert your raw files to dng files with out losing quality. Then light room will beable to read them

What is the reason you want to shoot at speeds higher that 500th of second? With that information I can be of more help to your direct question. The only reason I know of for that kind of speed is with shooting outdoors and trying to overpower the sun with your mono light.

If you are shooting ambient light only no flash and want to shoot higher that 500th using your meter you can do this. Take your reading set to 500th of a second. Lets say you get 500th at f11. If you double your speed to 1000 then change your fstop to f8. Every time you double your shutter speed you must open your lens one more stop. If you have questions on balancing ambient and the mono unit you can private message me

Jeff

If you are going to do photo editing then I would suggest lots of memory. Also a IPS monitor. With a normal monitor the angle of view looks so different. IPS looks the same.

Look on Craigslist for a Canon Pro-100. Canon had some deals out there and many got the printers along with a camera, so a lot of people sell the printer. I bought mine brand new in a box for $150. The quality is fantastic. Yes ink is expensive. You can by a refill set from Precision Ink. http://www.precisioncolors.com/PC42.html I have used their ink for a while and it works great. they also have icc profiles for the Pro 100 printer on their web site. Lots of good information on their web site.

I purchased the 24-70 L series in 2007. I have used it on a 20d 40d and my 5dII. I love this lens. I shoot a lot of events for a group home in Chicago. For me I see no reason have an IS. On the other hand I have seen some beautiful images with the Sigma Art Lenses as well as the many other brand names for use on Canon. Maybe you should rent one to see how you like it before making the investment. For years I was like many photographers and would argue which is a better Camera, Lens excreta. Then I realized the winning photos I saw in contests were taken with many brands of cameras and lenses. I have learned the photographers take pictures not the camera. If you like your results it's a great camera and lens.

First of all lets remember the best camera is the one you own! Second Photographers create photographs not cameras. I would stick with camera he has for another year. To be a great photographer you need to see(understand) light. Learn what F stops give you the depth of field, shutter speeds for stopping action , when to use what for the image your after. How ISO , shutter speed, and F stop = a triangle to exposer. Learn to use the camera on manuel and get the photo you envisioned. His current camera can do all of this. Once he has this down you can upgrade his gear. See if he sticks with photography. If he does then look at the better glass and 70 80d bodies. I would stay away from the kit lenses. I hear this Canon vs Nikon crap all the time. Talk is cheap show me your work then lets talk.

LOL, thanks for clarifying.

Please explain what you mean by "No Strings Attached"

I also print with the Canon Pro-100. I like its quality better that the Epson 1400 1430 printers I have used in the past. I am not sure which Calibration device you are using for your monitor. With most devices you can adjust the
White Luminance setting. Most recommend a setting of 120, this is way too bright. I have set my White Luminance to "80". Not the density of my prints pretty well match the monitor. Remember your monitor is back lit so will always look brighter than your prints.

If you are not using ICC profiles to print you should start doing this as well. I highly recommend Red River Paper. http://www.redrivercatalog.com/ They paper is very high quality and you have a great selection of surfaces and sizes to choose from. On their web site you can find all the information about using ICC profiles and how to set your printer settings to use these in Photo Shop or Light Room. They have profiles for all the common photo printers as well on the web site.

You may also want to check out Precision Color inks. Much cheaper the Canon OE ink. They also have custom profiles on their web site for the canon printer as well ones to use with Red River Paper with their ink.

If you have any questions you can always private message me.

Happy and improved printing.

Jeff JSL Photo