The Quiet Picture

There’s not a lot of light but there’s even less subjects to shoot. So the squirrels are getting fat on the seeds and nuts…

Under these lighting conditions, I have to contend with long shutter speeds despite a high ISO. The 300mm lens has Image Stabilisation (IS) and I make use of it, hoping that it will compensate for the slow shutters. I’m using a beanbag but sometimes it feels like I’m making the rig shake just by holding my finger on the trigger. Thus, use IS. There’s just one problem. For those of you not familiar with Canon’s IS technique, it was introduced in 1995. The 300mm f4L lens that I’m using was one of the first ones to benefit from it, but since then Canon has of course refined the technology and these days it’s a lot smarter and quieter than it used to be. For example, my 24-105mm f4L has IS which can be left on even when it’s mounted on a tripod, because the IS mechanism can detect it and it won’t try to stabilise when the rig is steady as it is. And there’s my problem. The old IS in the 300mm is pretty dumb so it will work hard - even when the rig is steadied on a beanbag and held down by hand…!

This is where you tell me that I should’ve known better. I could’ve gotten sharper squirrel images all along by trusting my beanbag and hands and switching off the IS.

Luckily it’s not like the old squirrel images are completely ruined, I mean do have some standards and the shaky pictures can only end up in the bin. But compare the old IS images with these new non-IS images I took today… DUH!

Now that the obligatory play with words is out of the way, let’s concentrate on the picture. We have plenty of roe deer around here, but somehow I’ve just never managed to photograph one. They are very skittish so they will bolt at the first sign of a human being, while they have no problems walking in the streets and around houses. I have a right old deer highway behind my house!

So, imagine my excitement when I spotted two deer grazing behind my neighbour’s house. I opened the window carefully and the animals didn’t mind me so for the first time, I had an opportunity to photograph them. It was sunrise, slightly overcast, day after solstice, so I had to crank up to ISO 640 to get at least 1/200 shutter speed, which was marginally fast enough with my shaking hands. Just to make the opportunity that much sweeter, the sun broke through the clouds for a moment to cast a golden light.

The pictures are noisy and they could be a bit sharper, but they are the only roe deer pictures I have (so far anyway). I’ll keep them, thank you very much!

I’ve been playing with Stellarium all morning, I can warmly recommend it! It’s not just a brilliant astronomy program, but it’s also freeware!

There’s one puzzle in my photography gear that I have never been able to solve, and that’s the bag. I used to have a Lowepro MiniTrekker which didn’t work for me at all, it was only good for storing the gear at home but carrying it around, no good. So I decided to take another route and bought a backpack which is made for hiking, I just added some foam padding inside to protect the gear and all was sweet for a while. But truthfully, as good as the bag feels on my back, it’s not entirely practical in the field so I’ve been looking for a new solution. I decided to go the photo backpack route again and found the Lowepro Flipside series. It’s a brand new design so I couldn’t find any user reviews, but the specs looked nice:

The Lowepro Flipside 300 Backpack (Arctic Blue/Black) is a tough, 600 denier water-resistant, polyester backpack that protects digital photo equipment against moisture and abrasion. The back compartment entry gives safe, easy access to camera gear, plus extra security. The outer storage pocket holds digital accessories and personal items, and the removable accessory pouch holds cables, chargers, manuals and other key accessories. It is carried by a backpack harness with a detachable waist belt. There is an adjustable sternum strap for comfort.

Size 25.8 x 17.4 x 44.5 cm (outer measurements) and capacity 1 pro DSLR with 300mm f2.8 lens mounted, 1-3 extra lenses or flash units, 1 tripod, pouch and pockets for accessories.

Now that I’ve tested the bag indoors, I can share my first observations.

Pros

- The bag stands upright on its own, even with the tripod mounted.
- Because the bag opens from the back, you can get at your gear without removing the tripod.
- The carry handle is nice.
- I didn’t put the bag under the shower, but assuming that it is water resistant as they say, then it’s nice to have such protection without using a separate rain guard.

Cons

- Lowepro seems to be awfully optimistic about the size. I started with a 300mm f4 mounted on my semi-pro camera and was able to squeeze in the 24-105mm f4 only after removing the glare guard and storing it separately. Luckily I will never go on a hike with three lenses so it will work, but how in the world they can put in a 300mm f2.8 and three other lenses plus accessories is beyond me! I was able to pack in the camera with the 300mm f4 mounted, 24-105mm zoom, glare guard, angle finder, two filters and remote control in the main compartment. And that’s it.
- The side pocket has a lot of small compartments inside it. The pocket folds out nicely so you can put in a lot of stuff, except that you can’t close the pocket afterwards. I thought it would be a good place for the remote control, but try as I might, I just couldn’t zip close the pocket so the remote ended up in the main compartment. Now the “roomy” side pocket holds a spare memory card, tissue paper, half eaten roll of Dextros and the small water level. All very flat.
- The sternum strap is positioned too low, and it’s especially uncomfortable for us women. Just to make sure that the strap is as unusable as possible, Lowepro has made it impossible to move it at all. I will not be using it.
- The waist belt is too flimsy. I tried to adjust the shoulder straps to move the bag up and down my back so I could make real use of the belt, but I just couldn’t find any position at all where I felt that the waist belt was carrying any weight.
- No matter where I positioned the pack, the lower edge always kept pressing my back. It felt uncomfortable the moment I put the pack on my back, and can’t imagine it would feel any better after a few km out in the field.
- The most comfortable I was able to set the bag was very low on my back so the painful lower edge was almost resting on my buttocks. With the tripod mounted, it means that the centre of gravity shifts low and far out from my back, which is just the opposite of the recommended way of carrying a backpack!

Conclusion

The idea of the bag is good, but it seems to me like no one ever actually tested it in practice. All the nifty details like accessory pocket, sternum strap and waist belt look good on paper but they just don’t work in real life. Of course, it’s one thing to try out a bag at home, and another to take it out in the field to use it. But all the cons I found in the bag at first try, I don’t think they will magically fix themselves after some use. I can hope that the side pocket stretches a little bit so it can actually hold some accessories, but the waist belt won’t suddenly start carrying any weight, or the sternum strap move upwards on its own.

It is very interesting that this series is still not showing up on Lowepro’s website. Maybe they are too embarrassed to show it. They sure should be.

To sum it up, if you’re considering of getting this bag - don’t! Unless of course you want to buy it second hand… from me…

I will be adding some comments after I’ve used the bag. Maybe it’s time for a mea culpa, but I doubt it!

Added 2007-12-22: I’ve now used the backpack for real. The edge that I felt sharply when I tested at home didn’t feel that bad when I was walking around, maybe my winter jacket helped a little bit as a padding. Although I still felt the edge on my spine, after a while it became a kind of a numbness instead throbbing pain. Not sure how it will feel on longer treks (this was only 3-4 km). But one thing that didn’t change at all is the waist belt. No matter how I adjust it and the shoulder straps, it carries almost no weight at all, meaning that my shoulders have to do all the work. And my shoulders sure don’t like it!

I only did mediocre squirrel photography today so I’m posting an image from last night. I’m kinda getting into night photography, probably mostly because I’ve finally read the manual for my timer remote control so now I know how it works for long exposures. I’ve only had it for about three years…

If you’re wondering why I didn’t compose with Polaris in a golden mean, I’ve got two things to say to you. Firstly, the camera was pointing straight up. Secondly, it was dark. My composition consisted of a water level which helped me to square up the camera, and a flashlight on the treetops to give me an approximation of the frame. My main concern was to get in Cassiopeia and honestly I didn’t even realise I had Polaris in the frame until after I saw the picture on the display. Do I hear anyone mention “crop”? Yeah I could… but the fun is in the chase. I want to get this right in the camera.

If anyone has any night time composition tips, I’m listening! Next time I’ll be doing this, I’ll pick some stars close to the horizon to get longer star trails for my minutes. I don’t know how long the battery will last, I took three pictures last night (15, 20 and 20 minutes) and the battery went from almost full charge to almost empty. Another problem is that I don’t know what to do while waiting. Go home and have a cup of tea?

Oh, one more thing I have to mention. It really is true that cold weather is good for the camera sensor. The first picture I took had some hot pixels in it, but the camera was still a bit warm when the exposure started. The other two images didn’t have any hot pixels because the camera had cooled down by then.

I think I should rename my blog. It’s nothing but squirrels anymore…

I have two problems with my squirrel perches. The biggest problem is that they are shaded most of the day so light is nearly always at a premium. I’m lucky to shoot at ISO 400, 200 hardly ever and let’s forget about ISO 100. But then when there is light, it is also a problem. It creates bad highlights in the background and now that there’s snow, the highlights are untolerable. Especially at this time of the year, when the sun never seems to reach the squirrel perches and if there’s one thing that doesn’t work, it’s a shaded subject and over-lit background. But today in the early afternoon, some muted sunlight reached the forest while the ambient light was sufficient for the squirrels, so I got a combination where the highlights were manageable.

Later in the winter, in February-March, sunlight starts to hit the perches again so I can hope to shoot with lower ISOs, get faster shutter speeds and sharper pictures. The sharpness I get from high ISOs and relatively show shutter speeds is barely acceptable. Chances are that everyone will be sick of squirrels by then, though!

We had a warm spell this week so much of the snow evaporated. Then yesterday the temperature sank down to zero and the rain in Ljusdal came down as snow in Loos, so the trees are once again covered in the white stuff. It was a delight to be out walking, but I was a bit worried that I wasn’t taking any pictures. Everywhere I looked it was beautiful, but … no pictures? Then I had an epiphany. I was not admiring the scenery as such, but I was admiring the decoration on it, the snow! Photography isn’t always about taking the picture, it is also knowing when you shouldn’t take a picture. You don’t need to photograph everything you admire, sometimes it is enough to just admire.