The Quiet Picture

Finding my voice in the silence of nature

Archive for the 'canon' Category

Old IS, no IS

December 25th, 2007 | Category: canon,canon 300mm,photography,squirrel
Canon 300 f4L IS, ISO 640, f4 @ 1/160

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!

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Canon 40D – for real

September 22nd, 2007 | Category: camera,canon,gear,photography

I couldn’t wait anymore and ordered my Canon 40D, which arrived even earlier than I expected! I haven’t gone all trigger happy and tested it just for the sake of testing, rather I’m just taking the pictures I would anyway. I will leave the reviewing and pixel peeping to others (and there are plenty of them around), but will just briefly give my first impressions:

  • the 40D is slightly bigger than the 20D (meaning that the L-bracket doesn’t fit the new camera, so I’m in for a wait until the 40D L-bracket becomes available)
  • the LCD screen is massive! The thumbnail in the info display is almost the same size as the full screen picture in the 20D
  • the shutter seems to behave a bit differently from what I’m used to. It’s quieter for one thing, and it feels like it’s a bit more sensitive than the 20D. So far anyway, it seems like the picture is taken just a fraction before I would expect the shutter button to be fully depressed. No biggie, just a matter of getting used to.
  • focus point selection can be assigned to the joystick – a boon for someone like me who keeps frequently changing it
  • the ISO button has been moved – I keep pressing the wrong button every time I change the ISO now. I’ll get used to it.

All in all, I really don’t think there’s any major thing that is better than my 20D. It’s just the number of the small improvements which add up, but to be honest, I think the biggest reason I got the 40D is because… well, because I wanted it. I’ve had the 20D for three years and it’s the longest time I’ve ever gone with the same camera, so I just felt that I needed a new toy. Now I have to decide what to do with the old camera… keep it as a bad weather body or sell it while it’s still in perfect condition?

But, one more word about the 40D – the bottom line. Are the 40D pictures better than 20D? Only if I can make them so!

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Canon 40D

August 19th, 2007 | Category: camera,canon
Amazon has leaked out the specs of the eagerly awaited 40D that many Canon shooters have speculated about since (or actually even before) the release of 30D. Looking at the specs, it looks like I will be missing out on 2 of the 3 features I had on my wish list. 3″ LCD yes, ISO 50 no, and channel histogram… well it isn’t specifically mentioned in the specs so I assume that it’s missing, otherwise they’d mention it as a new feature (or was it already included in 30D? I don’t know actually). But what I’ll get instead is improved weather sealing, I hadn’t even dared to hope for it. My camera rain guard has worked well, but it’s reassuring to know that some stray drops won’t damage the gear.

Considering that my 20D is still working fine and the increase from 8 to 10 MP is no big deal and I won’t get all the features I had hoped for, it’s a fair question to ask why I would want to upgrade my camera now. Well, a fair question for anyone who isn’t a photographer! I know I’m in for some serious queuing to get a new 40D…

Amazon pulled out the 40D page while I was writing this post, but someone over at dpreview was kind enough to take a screen shot. Canon should officially announce the camera tomorrow.

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B&W

August 10th, 2007 | Category: camera,canon,photography

This is a story of “I wouldn’t normally do that kind of thing”:

Since my holiday, I haven’t been the least bit interested in taking any new pictures. In fact, I had almost settled on skipping August entirely and just wait for September, which is one of my favourite months. But on the bus home, I was looking at the overcast skies and suddenly became inspired for some landscape photography, of all things! In flat light like that? No problems, the wind was calm so I had high hopes of producing some images by the lake. So I packed the camera and tripod and cycled to Loossjön and enjoyed the unusual pleasure of cycling on the shore, thanks to the low water level all summer so that the muddy shore is now packed hard. There is also a lot of driftwood scattered all around, so I concentrated on those as there was just enough wind to spoil the reflections on water.

While I was planning my compositions, it occurred to me that these roots are very graphical and should work fine in black and white. There wasn’t much colour in the first place, just a little bit of brown in the sand but still it’s very very unusual that I would even consider B&W. When have you last seen a B&W picture from me? I rest my case.

Converted to B&W – weird things happen.

So I kept shooting, until suddenly the camera wouldn’t fire the shutter. In fact, it wouldn’t do anything at all. I removed the lens, battery and memory card, but still nothing. Did it finally break down? While I was pedalling home, I was thinking about my strategy in case the camera really was broken. I figured that I had two options – send the camera for repair (and wait for weeks to get it back) or give up on it and get a used 350D or 400D while waiting for the 40D that Canon is almost sure to release soon. But when I got home and started troubleshooting the problem, it turned out that it was nothing more than a glitch in the memory card, so now my strategy is to just simply wait for the 40D. I’ve seen the rumoured spec sheet and I’m actually not that impressed by it, but the 3″ LCD sounds good… Apart from that, my wish list contains a channel histogram and ISO 50. We’ll see what the actual specs will look like… but the big LCD seems to be a sure thing anyway.

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