Ultimate TORTURE!!
 

I went in to pick up my 7D body today and planned on getting 3 lenses. I knew I would have to special order the 11-16 Tokina...but I was surprised they didn't have the Canon 17-55mm or the Sigma 30mm in stock. Apparently lenses had been selling like crazy and nobody told me.

I didn't place an order for any lenses because the shop usually helps me out on the prices so that I can fit an extra lens or gear in without any added cost (Using points)...so I waited...and now I have a 7D body and will have to wait 1 week to a month for the lenses.

That is a pain, you could drill a tiny hole in the dust cap and play with 'pin hole' photography.

Buy a used EF-S 18-55mm dirt cheap on Ebay just so you can have something to play with.

The 50mm 1.8 is in-stock almost everywhere, and the only lens I would say a man cannot live without. Even if there are none locally, I would seriously be looking at overnighting one in so I could play with my new baby if I were you.

For photography (On my D700) my 50mm 1.8 is my favorite lens. I decided to go this route JUST to have something to play with. I wanted something right away so I went to a different store where I knew they would have something.

The guy at the store was very aware of my pain and also suggested I buy a Tamaron lens that was about 60USD, but I didn't quite listen to the specs. They were made cheap so they could sell them cheap and they didn't even have them out on the floor. I know I'll use my 50mm for other stuff, so this should get me through to next week/month.

Another tortured soul
 

I got the body too but no lens yet. I have an 18-55mm coming in hopefully tomorrow. In the meantime I tried out a Nikon lens with an adapter. Is it just me or is it normal for the viewfinder image to look dimmer and mottled compared to a nikon focus screen? Sorry, I'm just used to looking through Ee-A focus screens from 35mm adapters which are brighter.

I'm not sure quite what you mean by 'mottled'. The viewfinder won't be as bright as a full frame VF; that is one of the disadvantages of 1.6x cameras.

I've compared my 7D with my 1Ds, and the 7D is not far behind. However, all AF slr's will have dimmer VF's compared to any MF slr. My Oly OM1 or Minolta X-700 have extremely bright VF's. It doesn't hurt that the mirror is not semi-silvered to allow for the AF mechanism to work.

This sounds a little strange but the view finder is actually brightened by the cameras battery... if you'd like to check it out... just take the battery out and look through
the view finder, then put the battery back in and look thru it again...

I was just about to post about that.

It's true... due to the new LCD overlay in the VF, it _is_ darker if there's no battery in the camera.

Apparently, the new Nikon's also have the same design.

You're right. I just put the battery in and it became normal. It looks dark, blurry, and mottled when the battery is taken out. I was worried the viewfinder wasn't aligned properly. It takes some getting used to, even the snap of the mirror sounds different on a Canon.

Body-cap pinhole lens
 

Drill the hole slightly larger (perhaps 4mm), then tape a piece of aluminum foil over the large hole and poke the hole in the foil. You won't be able to get a small enough aperture since the flange distance is only a few cm.

If you crank the ISO up, you can even shoot movies with the pinhole lens. I'm considering using it as a special effect in a film project.

Thats cool Tramm... when I was a kid we used to find big boxes and poke a hole in the side
of them, then get inside the box... it was like going to the movies.. :-)