Quote:
The Canon XS will allow you to focus, etc from your computer, correct?
I'm currently using that exact camera to do this, so, yes, I'm quite sure you can.
Keep in mind, the XS was Ray's recommendation when putting together a quick list of parts based on minimal price, and doesn't *have* to be the camera you look for. Anything from the 450/450D (XS/XSi) generation or newer will do you; that's when they started with Live View/EFSC. With that said, the XS is a really nice buy at the price for our purposes, since they retain less resale value as a "cheaper" version of the flagship model from that generation, the XSi. The features you give up relative to the XSi have no bearing at all on what you want it for, and in truth very darn little bearing on using it as a "regular" camera.
Compared to the current-generation 18MP sensor Canon is using, the XS' 10MP sensor gives up almost 1000 pixels of vertical size, 3456 vs. 2592. That seems like a big number - it is - but in the real world it doesn't amount to much. You're going to be downsizing any image from either camera by at least two-thirds to post online, anyway. So don't necessarily let dazzling statistics blind you to the practicality of saving a couple hundred bucks in the purchase price.
The XS I'm using seems to want an SD card in place for shooting (as I recall, my T2i didn't care if a card was in place when shooting and saving images remotely), but any old cheap SD card will do as you're not going to be using it to store images anyway.
I don't know exactly how your Minolta bellows is configured, but you should certainly be able to use it for the purpose. You'll have to determine the attachment type at top and bottom to get the right adapters, but you can assume they'll be available. Ray will probably know better than I where you can find them at a reasonable price, but
ebay will be a good start.
Please don't hesitate to ask any question which comes to mind. We're more than happy to help.
Posted 10/18/2013 8:53 pm
