Tag: canon

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Centon Flash on the EOS 400D

I realise that I don’t write about my digital cameras much on this blog, I have talked about other cameras, but not mine.

I originally had a film Canon SLR and about six or seven years ago I got a Canon EOS 300D Digital  SLR which back in 2007 I upgraded to the Canon EOS 400D.

One of the original reasons for going for the Canon DSLR was that I hoped to use my Canon accessories with my new camera. The lenses seemed to work fine, but I could never get my Centon Flash unit to work with my Canon EOS 400D. I just put it down to new camera, old flash!

Today I was going through a box and I found the Centon Flash and I thought, why not have another go, so I did and yet again it didn’t work.

So… I know lets use Google!

Found this blog entry which though talking about a different Centon Flash unit made this useful comment.

I had to tape over the four communication pin contacts on my 400D with electrician’s tape – it won’t fire the flash otherwise when it is mounted on the hotshoe.

So using a bit of tape I taped over four of the contacts and tried the flash…

It worked!

Simple.

When you know how.

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You’re starting to annoy me…

My Canon MP600r is starting to annoy me.

Every time I try to print from my iMac, the printer can not be found on the wireless network.

If I power cycle the printer, it “magically” appears and I can print!

The same more often then not for scanning.

Now I have no real idea what the problem is, whether it is a wireless, printer or some other issue.

I do need to do some further testing. Things I may do including connecting the printer by wire to a wireless WET54G and see if it is a printer issue.

If it is a wireless issue I may connect the printer direct to the iMac by USB and share it across the network.

Canon MP600r

More soon…

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Borderless Printing

Printing from Indesign CS2 using my Canon MP600R can be fraught with difficulties if I want to use borderless printing.

Even if I think everything is fine, the print which pops out of my printer has a white border… another (expensive) sheet of Canon’s Photo Paper Pro heads for the bin!

Part of the problem is the InDesign print window, which can be confusing and doesn’t always pass on what you ask to the printer.

Printing

The other part is that the Canon Mac printer driver won’t let you do borderless printing unless you are using one of their special papers.

As a result you can change the paper to borderless A4…

As a result you can change the paper to borderless A4…

But as you haven’t changed the paper in the Quality & Media of the print setup, the paper will default back to non-borderless A4 as you can’t use borderless printing with Plain Paper!

But as you haven’t changed the paper in the Quality & Media of the print setup, the paper will default back to non-borderless A4 as you can’t use borderless printing with Plain Paper!

Even if you now change the media to some posh (and expensive) Canon paper and print (what you think is borderless), your printout will still come out with white borders.

The key is to change the paper quality before you select the paper type.

Don’t mind me, I just need to go out and buy some more expensive paper…

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Why can’t I print?

So today I needed to print some documents for work tomorrow and would my Canon MP600R print? No it would not!

It was only while I was doing the washing up that I remembered that my Canon MP600r was wireless and of course I had only recently changed my 802.11g wireless network.

So of course I had to reconfigure the MP600R to join the new wireless network. Alas you can’t do this wirelessly, nor using the control panel on the printer itself. You need to connect via USB and then configure (on a Mac) via Printer Setup Utility.

Though usually this is a straightforward process, I had real problems today. Though I could change the settings I could not actually add the printer. In the end it actually froze my iMac and I needed to hard reboot. Once this was done I found I could add the printer.

Then of course I now need to check I can print from my other computers.

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Digital Photography Reviews

Digital Photography Review has recently reviewed quite a few digital cameras these are well detailed and thorough reviews and well worth reading if you are interested in getting a new digital camera.

Olympus SP-560UZ

Canon PowerShot SX100 IS

Sony Alpha DSLR-A700

Panasonic Lumix DMC-L10

The Sony looks like the one I would buy if I was buying a new digital camera, but then I am very fond of my Sony Cybershot and would be interested to see how their SLRs perform compared to my Canon.

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Annoying Printer

Though I really do like my new Canon MP600r multi-function printer, there is one aspect which does annoy me slightly.

If you need to reconfigure the wireless connection you need to connect it to the Mac by USB cable. This can be difficult if the printer is not near the computer, which it might well be as that’s certainly why I bough a wireless printer. If I wanted a wired USB printer I would have bought the much cheaper MP600.

Canon MP600r

Ah well, at least I have reconfigured the printer to join my new Airport Extreme wireless network, and now I can print and scan over the wireless network.

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A618 Photo Printer

I recently replaced my older HP PhotoSmart 6″x 4″ printer with a new model.

The HP A618 PhotoSmart Printer is slightly bigger than my previous model, but it can print up to 7″x 5″ as well as the standard 6″x 4″.

It comes with integrated Bluetooth which is useful for printing from a mobile phone and from a computer, avoids the need to find that USB cable.

It doesn’t come with a battery, which is an optional extra, but I will be getting a battery, as I found that really useful on my older printer.

The quality is excellent and I am certainly impressed with the quality of the prints.

When it comes to printing photographs, I know I could use my Canon MP600r, but personally I have found it much easier to use a dedicated photo printer such as the A618. Not only is it quicker and easier especially in terms of setup, and choosing the right paper, the fact you can just plug in your camera or the camera’s memory card avoids many of the problems that I have had when printing photographs from my regular printer.