If you can only do four-second clips (a limit I've never heard of), then something is odd. The hard limit is 29 minutes and 59 seconds, due to stupid EU laws about the dividing line between still cameras and camcorders. Not that I ever get near that, of course.

I'm not sure what you mean by 4 seconds being a hack, either, but then I use video editing software anyway.

 

Hi Someday

Maybe I didn't explain it quite right

But you can Record a Video any length you like, although my Camera has an Option to record a Series of 4 Second Clips, which are Automatically Stitched together.

 

Ah, right. Gotcha. I don't Think my Camera has that Option.

 

Hi Someday

My Canon D750 which I use for taking XJS pics, was purchased from a Charity/Thrift Shop and is in excellent A1 condition and looks almost like new

But I was wondering if there was a way of finding out the number of Shutter Actuations that this Camera has had

 

Canon makes it extremely hard to check shutter count, because Canon doesn't seem to care about what consumers want. Your best bet may be to try "EOSInfo," a free program from a place called astrojargon. You'll need to hook up the camera to your computer. And it doesn't work with Macs.
That said, if the external condition is like new, I wouldn't worry too much. Shutters last for 100,000 uses or more, and you won't get that and have your camera looking almost like new.

 

Hi Someday

Cheers!

Well in that case I'll just carry on in ignorance and bliss, the Camera works great, so more a case of curiosity

Thanks for your help

 

I bought my 60D new in July 2011. While I haven't checked the shutter count, and I do delete some originals photos that just aren't worth keeping, a quick check of my photos drive suggests that in the six years I've owned it, I might have taken around 40,000 photos, rounding up. So less than half the official shutter lifespan. My camera doesn't look like new, either. Not battered as such, but not "like new" or anything.

 

Hi Someday

Thanks for your help

I've probably only taken about 3,000 Photo's so I've got a bit of catching up to do, you're very lucky to have so much great scenery to explore and document

And Pro Photographers like yourself, usually have well used Cameras, while I'm just a 'Holiday Snapper' in comparison to yourself

 

I don't really take that many photos--it's just that when I do, I take a LOT of photos....
And you can't tell me England doesn't have photogenic landscapes. I obviously don't know where you live, but the parts I've been to have been very photogenic. True, I stayed out of the big cities aside from London, but the countryside is nice. Plus loads of old architecture and so on. Way older than most of the stuff we get here.

 

Hi Someday

It wouldn't matter where I took my Photos, as I don't have 'a photographers eye' so wouldn't be able to make my Pictures 'Pop' like you can do

Or at least not without taking time to work on my technique, which is in very short supply at the moment as lots of other jobs are shouting louder

 

Oh, it's easy to get a photographer's eye. A bit messy, especially if they wriggle while you're trying to dig it out, but a sharp knife through the optic nerve should do the trick....

 

Hi Someday

Do I need this Lens in my life?

It looks like a Stock Kit Lens which I haven't got, as I started off with A Body Only Canon D750

And looks about £20 cheaper than others I have seen, although its feels fairly light weight so may not be as good?

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 111

Price:£40

They also offered me about £60 for my Canon EF 28mm 1:2.8 Prime Lens which is the Lens that I use all the time (mostly) no idea it was worth that much but a bit reluctant to sell it as it is quite fast

I've also got a Canon EF 35-80mm 1:4-5.6 11 which I haven't made much use of

And a very nice Telephoto EF 75-300mm 1:4-5.6 Zoom Lens

I didn't have much chance to try out the EF-S 18-55mm in the Shop but potentially good for Macro

Thoughts?



Canon EFS 18-55mm (not sure what the S stands for?)



Tried to grab a quick Macro Shot

 

Short answer: nope.
Longer answer: Noooooope.
It's their cheap kit lens that came with lower-end (entry-level) APS-C cameras (the "S" on "EF-S" stands for "Short" (probably), and refers to lenses designed for APS-C cameras--you can't use them on full-frame ones). The reason it's cheap is because anyone serious about their photos ditches the kit lens once they outgrow it. I mean, it's not a bad lens, but it's not a good lens either - that is, it's not the sort of lens you would buy to upgrade your stuff.

To be blunt (sorry), none of your lenses other than the 28 mm are particularly good lenses. Their main value is in being cheap. The 28's a decent performer. Not great, but a good lightweight lens. The 75-300 gets reviews like "mediocre", which probably won't impress you. In general, glass holds its value pretty well, as the real value is in the quality of the lens construction rather than technological stuff like optical stablization and ultrasonic motors and so on. Which are nice to have, certainly, especially the former (though if you're a studio photographer, or use a tripod as a matter of course, it's not needed). But it also means that cheap lenses are cheap for a reason.

As to selling your 28 mm for 60 quid, I wouldn't. A quick eBay check suggests that the average asking price for a used 28 mm f2.8 (no II, I assume?) is about 100 quid. Obviously the shop will want to buy it for as little as possible, and mark it up about double or so. I'd hang onto it for the time being.

For reference, I'll give you a rundown of what lenses I own and what I think of them (use them for). Going roughly from widest to longest....

Sigma 8-16 mm f4.5-5.6
This is one of my favourite lenses. I've already posted some pics from it, but the way you can get absolutely everything in at the wide end makes it just so much fun. It's one of the lenses I like to take when travelling, despite its heavy weight. Its big drawback is that it's not very fast. But it's easily the widest non-fisheye lens out there, and way cool. It is hard to use, however--because the slightest movement out of true vertical/horizontal can make straight lines bent, so if you're photographing something square on, you need care.
Sample Pic

This is actually a 90-degree right angle....

Canon 35 mm f2.0 IS USM
Another of my most-used lenses, this prime is both wider than my 50 mm f1.8 and sharper, though somewhat more expensive. It's also a lens that travels with me, as it's the fastest of my "travel collection" and sometimes you want that clarity and isolation a fast lens can get you. It's notably larger than the 50 mm prime, and way better built. Its other big advantage over the 50 mm is optical stabilization. I ruined many shots in dim museums and so on with the 50 mm blurring, so bought this as basically the ultimate "museum lens."
Sample pic

As you can see, I often use it for food photos while travelling.

Canon 50mm f1.8
The famous "nifty fifty" lens. The cheapest lens I own, easily, but one that's so cheap and so fast there's really no reason not to grab one. Being a simple prime, at an easily engineered focal length, you get pretty good quality for your price. It's extremely lightweight, too. However, it's not one of my travel lenses as I find on an APS-C camera like mine and yours that it's just not quite wide enough. And that 1.8 f-stop means that the area in focus can be razor-thin. If you're not bang-on with your focusing, you'll ruin the photo. And as many objects are 3D, you can end up with half the subject blurred even if you don't want it blurred. That's shot wide open, of course. You can always stop it down, but then you lose the speed advantage. Also, the bokeh isn't the best.
Sample pic

See how small that area in focus is? This isn't a bad thing, of course--it's how you use it.

Canon 18-135 mm f3.5-5.6
The kit lens that came with my Canon 60D. Versatile, light, cheap, decent but not great photos. A good all-rounder that does nothing very well but everything acceptably. It can take some very nice photos, but it does reveal its limitations when pushed. It's certainly softer than my 100 mm macro. Makes an excellent travel lens, though I don't use it for that any more. Some of my favourite shots have been taken with this lens, though admittedly that was also when I didn't have many other lenses.
Sample pic

This photo of sunset over the Tyn Church in Prague was taken at 135 mm, the maximum zoom.

Tamron 16-300 mm f3.5 - 6.3
Woah! Is that a typo? Nope. This lens goes from very, very wide to very, very far, making it my current go-to travel lens. It's an extremely versatile lens that even does decent macro. The problem is that it does none of these all that well. Maybe it's just me, but I often find myself disappointed in the image quality--it's pretty soft, frankly. But if I am going somewhere and I want to take only one lens, this is the one I generally take. Better a soft photo than no photo.... Though I'm increasingly less happy with it.
Sample pic

This shows the staggering zoom range very clearly.

Canon 70-300 f4.0 0 5.6
Not to be confused with your 75-300, this superseded it, and is widely regarded as a much better lens. Some reviews even referred to it as a "sleeper L lens". I wouldn't go that far myself. It's decent, but I seldom use it these days as the Tamron goes out as far, and is lighter and easier for travelling. Also, I find that I prefer wider over longer as a general rule, at least when travelling. Like many longer lenses, it does make a good portrait lens due to being able to blur the background (and not distort the face) or birding lens due to its reach.
Sample pic
An eccentric old man who lives in the woods and makes elderberry wine.

Canon 100 mm f2.8 L Macro
My only "L" lens, and one of the cheaper L lenses you can get, especially compared to the non-L. This is astoundingly sharp and clear and the images are superb. I don't use it nearly as much as I should as it's not very versatile, however. 100 mm is too short to be a decent zoom, and too long to get much into the frame. You need to work to get good framing. As a macro, it's naturally ideal for insects and flowers, though the problem there, I've found, is that they don't stay still very long. It's rare for there to be no wind at all here. I should use this lens more often, but I never take it travelling as it's just too limited in what it can do. But what it can do, it does superbly.
Sample pic

No other lens I have can get anything like this shot.

Tamron 150-600 mm f5.0 to 6.3
This is one serious monster of a lens. It is huge and heavy, and thus not remotely suited for travelling unless someone else is carrying it for you. Not a very fast lens (if it were, it would three times as heavy and ten times as expensive), but that reach is something else. It flattens everything in focus, and blurs out everything out of focus to create some interesting images. Unfortunately, it's a bit slow for good birds in flight photos.
Sample pics


TOP: River near my place at sunset, with blue and orange sky reflecting in it. This is the sort of abstract imagery the lens can be good for.
BOTTOM: Blood Moon Rising. This is another example of something a lesser lens simply cannot do. While the difference between 300 mm and 600 mm isn't actually as dramatic as I had expected, by being able to crop the image still further you can give the impression of even greater reach.

I haven't bought any new lenses for a while (all my money seems to be going on Lady Mary these days), but there are some I would like. I am very tempted by the 15-85 mm Canon EF-S, which gets superb reviews and would make a great travel lens, but it ain't cheap, and I've held off on buying it until I know whether I'll be moving into full-frame or not with my next body. At the moment, I'm tossing up between the 80D for its great video capabilities (one less thing to carry, plus better lenses and sensors than a normal camcorder), and the 6DII for the low-light full-frame goodness. Or I might see what the upcoming 90D offers....

Anyway, I hope this rundown of the different lenses and how they can be used (strengths and limitations) is of use.

 

SS: is your camera full frame or APS? I'm not up on the variants of Canon's (except F-1's, I have a few of those).

 

Mine's an APS-C (60D). With Canon, anything with two or more digits is APS-C. Though the 7D is also APS-C. Full-frame starts at the expensive 6D, then the very expensive 5D, then the insanely expensive 1D.

 

Hi Someday

Thank you So Much for going to all that trouble and will keep this as a reference guide from now on, in case I come across some of those Lenses at the right price

I only paid a total of £50 for all those three lenses I've got, so as you may imagine was quite surprised when they offered me around £60 for my 28mm

The same shop has a Sigma 150mm X 600mm (can't remember how fast it was) but I do remember the price: £600!

But like yourself I'm continuously spending money on my Cars and haven't even Taxed 'Cherry' yet as the weather has been a bit 'flakey'

And I want to get on with fixing 'The Ice Princess' which has not been on the road since 2009!

Magazine Quality Shots as always, keep them coming it really does help to inspire me and show me what is possible

If unlike me, you know how to take a great photo

 

Fifty quid for all those lenses is definitely a good deal, though. No wonder you were surprised with the £60 offer. Because lenses are generally pretty expensive even used, at least over here, I bought all mine new. Was that £600 for the Tamrom 150-600 mm lens second-hand? If so, and for comparison, I bought mine new in Japan in 2014 for £737. If it was new, it's a bit cheaper, as the current lowest new price in Japan is £660.

At the moment, I am thinking I should have kept spending money on lenses and not buying cars. Never had any problems with the lenses....