I run a high school yearbook and we own several Can 60D's. I noticed a couple of them would not autofocus is P mode with autofocus turned on on the lens. I tried a factory resent of the menus as recommended by a few people. I tried different lenses and cards. Nothing changed. Being a school we don't have ton of money so I'm wondering if anyone else has something I could try before sending them for repairs.

That was my question. Do I need a 2.8 outdoors. I guess the answer is no.

I'm the advisor to a high school yearbook and high school newspaper. I have a great student photo staff and some pretty good equipment - several canon 60D's and a variety of lenses. I realize that if we are taking a basketball game, or any indoor sport, that we need fast (2.8) lenses and have them. Is this kind of lens really necessary on a bright day outside? The longest 2.8 lens we have is 200 mm. That won't get me to the outfield in a baseball game or across the field very well in field hockey or soccer. We have a couple of 300 mm lenses but they are not 2.8. They seem to do OK outdoors, but maybe I'm missing something. I'd love to have thousands for a 300-400 mm 2.8 but this is a school and that just isn't realistic.

Not sure if you are looking for an iMAC (monitor included) or a Mac Mini - just the computer. I do all my photo editing (photoshop) on a macbook pro with 8gb. You should have no problem with that much memory but you can get more. A couple of suggestions. If you want to save some money, look for a refurb on the apple site. You can get a nice computer for less there. Also, you might check out ebay. Unlike most PC's, macs usually last a long time so buying a used one, or even a new computer, on ebay is actually a reasonable option. A used machine is usually upgraded and has software already on it. Just make sure you check out the new prices on the apple site first - sometimes professional ebay sellers - as opposed to that one guy selling his machine - want more than if you bought it new! Another thing to consider - new macs usually do not have an optical drive. Apple thinks you are going to do everything on the internet or through USB ports, so if you have a lot of CD's or DVD's, you will need to get an external DVD drive. That's not expensive but you might be shocked to find you have no place to insert your DVD in the computer. Give some thought to what you really need because if you buy a mac you can expect to have it a LONG time. I have an old mac tower in my basement I use for a file server that's been around for over 10 years and still works fine. I don't know how old you are, but eye doctors say a lot of older people (like me) prefer a laptop because we can look down at the screen through the bottom half of our bifocals! Just a few things to consider.

Excuse me if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find it. I run a photo department in a high school in which 9 or 10 pretty competent kids are using photo equipment at various times. At the moment we are using mostly canon 60D's. Over the years I'm accumulated 4 Tamron 28-75MM 2.8 lenses that have various focusing issues on autofocus. Cosmetically they all look great - no scratches or dust. It seems a shame to throw them out, although we have enough other lenses. I think they are too old to be under warrenty. I know one was dropped but the others went bad for reasons unknown to me. Does anyone had any experience getting Tamron lenses repaired? I've read sending them to Tamron costs a lot. I don't want to pay almost as much as the lens is worth new. I'd be willing to take one apart myself to see what I can do, but the instructions I've found on the net for doing that were not very complete or helpful. Any suggestions or experiences? Maybe it's not worth it since they don't have IS.

Rick Perry is Jesus. Yeah, right. People like Rick Perry get elected because only the right wing votes in Texas. The liberals have given up, which is our own fault. Even a lot of liberals think this charge is weak and trumped up. Personally I think it is all a publicity stunt cooked up by Perry supporters. Someone put this idea in the head of the DA and she fell for it because she was angry. Most people are not fond of prosecutors, let alone one who breaks the law herself. Righteous Rick goes after the evil prosecutor. He's now a hero to a lot of people and will get millions in free publicity. As a democrat it pains me how badly they play the game in Texas. I doubt Perry has much shot at the presidency, but his chances just got BETTER because of this. He was smiling in his mug shot because he knows this.

I use a 60D and love it. There are so many possible factors here.
a. camera shake (is he using a tripod? Are these hand held?)
b. focus point set incorrectly - set one focus point, not all 9 of them and see what happens. When my subject is blurry it's almost always because I didn't check this. Something is in focus - just not what I had intended.
c. defective lens (probably not but it wouldn't hurt to try a different one.) Is the lens really set on autofocus or did the switch get nudged a little toward manual? I've had people come up to me at events and want to know why their camera isn't focusing. That always seems to be the reason.
just to name a few. My suggestion is for you - whose photos are super, BTW - to take some shots using his camera and see if the same thing happens.

I have bought tons of refurb Canon equipment without a single complaint. It's as good as new if not better. If you see a deal on a refurb from the manufacturer, grab it.

If a group took your land by force and killed you ancestors I suspect you would be bitter also. It makes no difference if it happened hundreds of years ago. A lot of people seem to be still fighting over things that happened in Jerusalem a thousand years ago. What a conquering people owe to the people they conquered is an interesting debate which I might engage in if you didn't call me ignorant. Rude is not the best way to advance your point. I find on these forums that adjectives such as ignorant, stupid, clueless, etc really mean "you don't agree with me." As soon as that happens I stop the discussion, so feel free to hurl all the insults you want because I won't be replying.

The guy holding the sign about indigenous people has a point. Native Americans, whether north or south, have every right to be bitter. That same bitterness is reflected by the college professor, who, by the way, is correct. By 2034, according to projections, whites will be the minority. What no one seems to want to talk about, however, is why these people come here. If the governments south of the border could get their acts together and stamp out the gangs and drug dealers which make those countries so unsafe, then people wouldn't be so desperate as to send their children north with smugglers rather than keep them in their native lands. I'd like to see troops pulled out of the Middle East and sent to Central America to help those governments. Putting up more fences or putting more people on border patrols doesn't get to the root of the problem. If the natives felt Mexico and Central America were safe places this wouldn't be happening. We seem to be more concerned with what is happening in Iraq than what is happeing in our own hemisphere.

Thanks for giving us a chuckle. I haven't done that particular thing because I use a card reader, but I've tried taking a photo numerous times when the camera wasn't on, lens cap was on, etc, which is pretty embarrassing if you're taking a group shot of waiting people. I've found that almost all of the time when things don't work it's lack of power. A friend of mine called in a panic because her computer would not turn on. "Is it plugged in?" I say. "Of course it's pugged in," she says. I recall that she has her computer plugged in to a power strip. I also remember she has a cat which walks around on everything. "Is the power strip turned on," I say. "Of course," she says. "Look at the power strip," I insist. Silence. "Oh, how did that happen?" she says turning on the power strip.

Funny. When I joined this forum I thought it was about photography. I don't understand why this thread even exists, but apparently the people who come here are mostly right wing extremists bigots. Many of you can't stand the idea that a black man is president, the deficit is down, unemployment is down, people without health care can now get it, and Osama was finally found and killed, just to name a few positive things accomplished under this administration. Statements are made without any basis in fact and not even an attempt to back them up. Many here seem to think that walking into a department store with an AK15 over your shoulder is a reasonable thing to do. Obviously I'm a democrat (learn how to spell it) and I certainly don't feel welcome here. I guess I need to find a forum that is really about photography.

Yeah. I figured someone would pull out one of those "one in a million" incidents. By that line of reasoning we should never drive because sometimes people get into accidents or fly because planes crash. Actually getting into a serious auto accident is thousands of times more probable than ever running into an armed gunman. What are you doing to protect yourself from an auto accident while you drive to Target with your AK15? You should read a book called Innumeracy by a mathematitican named Paulus. He points out in specific detail that people are most afraid of things that are highly unlikely to happen and pay little attention to threats are are likely to happen. One reason is that the media pay lots of attention to unusual events like a shooter or a crashed plane and little time on things that happen every day, like car accidents. You're right that I don't know you. I think that ALL people who think they need to bring a gun to a department store are either show offs, paranoid, or just don't understand basic probability.

Protect yourself from what? A shootout in the toilet paper section? If you people who want to walk around with guns all the time actually think you have any reasonable probability of being shot in ordinary retail establishments, then I feel sorry for you. Maybe in a high crime area you might be justified, but certainly not in ordinary places. I think it's more likely you just want to act tough and show off. However, there are some people who just have short fuses and giving them a gun is just asking for trouble. I don't feel like being threatened if I accidentally cut in front of someone or do something else to piss them off, so if I walked into a place and saw a customer with a rifle over his shoulder I would leave. Target is 100% right in not wanting their customers to feel uncomfortable shopping there. If you NEED a gun to go to a department store then that is truly pathetic. There are loads of things you can do legally but that doesn't mean you should do them.

In reply to the photo above, Kymarto, I would be shocked if it wasn't HDR. Pretty darn nice example, I'd say.