Long time no talk

It’s been a while and I have a backlog of stuff I want to post about in my head, that’s only growing longer.  I hardly know where to start, so I’m going to start with today.

Today I’ve been coming to grips with my new (to me) Canon 7D camera.  See, a while back now, this happened on my beloved Canon 550D

Uh-oh

Needless to say I tried turning the camera off and on again, and I tried re-installing the battery, and I tried any number of other suggestions found on the internet, but it wasn’t to be.  Err 30 turned out to be a terminal shutter error.  The shutter was not pining.  The shutter had died.

My camera is only about two and a half years old, but long out of warranty, and a reputable (I checked, the internet said so) repairer put the total repair cost up to nearly $400.  At that point, I began looking at other options.

My research led me to the Canon 7D.  I’ve been thinking about finding a camera the next step up for a while but wasn’t planning to jump yet.  Now I’d been pushed.  The timing was awkward though; ideally I’d be looking at a full frame, probably the Canon 5D Mark II or III, but most of my lenses won’t fit on a full frame camera, and I wasn’t prepared at that point to spend the time or the money selling them and buying new ones.  The 7D is the top of the range APS-C Canon, and is weather-resistent, has 19 autofocus points, fast shutter speeds and generally has a good reputation despite being over three years old (“ahead of its time”, says Canon, and general consensus agrees).

If full-frame versus APS-C is talking goobledegook to you, check out this great explanation.  It wasn’t that long ago that it was goobledegook to me too!

Given the age of the 7D and not having worked myself up to the idea of spending a huge amount of money, I hunted ebay and found a 7D with extended warranty and not too many shutter actuations (“you wot?” I would have said a few weeks ago.  Shutter actuations are how many times the shutter has been released.  In the case of my 550D, I suspect my love of continuous mode while shooting kittens may have led to its somewhat early death).  As a bonus, the seller lives one suburb north of me, so I had my new camera in my hot lil hands within days.

And now I’ve hit the 7D learning curve.  To say it’s steep is an understatement.

When I first picked it up, I couldn’t even work our how to turn it on.  The power button is on the opposite side of the camera to the 550D.  The back of the 7D is covered in buttons, and there’s a dial and a joystick.  There’s more buttons and two dials and a screen on the top.  Oh boy.

So I took the manual out of the box and put it somewhere safe to read later.  Can I find it now?  Of course not.  But I know where the box is.

But like so many new things, picking it up and having a go is usually much more fun than reading some tedious manual.  My first night of shots, the focus jumped around, it didn’t seem to want to focus in AI Servo mode and live view kept doing weird things.  Still, here is Taala, in her new favourite perch (a blanket hung to dry over the wine rack, of course)

This is what happens if you just pick up a 7D and press random buttons… and like a million monkeys on a million typewriters, take enough images

I still haven’t found the manual, but that’s what the internet is for.  A couple of interesting threads on the DP Review site (here and here) led me to some great links on the 7D’s autofocusing system (handy summary too) and the many custom functions.  I’m still reading both forum threads and I’m sure there’s more to learn besides, but the potential for this camera is quite exciting.

Practising focus on the centre of the gerbera. Viewing at 100% (pixel-peeping) shows these to not really be as sharp as I’d like.  More practise needed for me

 

 

 

Partial Lunar Eclipse

I love astronomy.  There’s nothing to give you a sense of perspective than staring up at the stars and realising just how old the light that’s reaching your eye right that second is.   The vast distance in both time and space.  The gigantic sizes involved.  Then remembering that all matter in the universe, including you and me and the cat and our mobiles and the garbage bag and the works of Picasso and of course Picasso himself and everything in between, was all born from stars.  We’re made of stars.  Out there is what our nursery looked like.  And our moon is some of the debris, just like us.

The Full Moon in all its glory

Tonight, on my upside-down side of the world, we were treated to a partial eclipse of the moon.  A partial eclipse is where just a little bit of the earth gets between the sun and the moon, so the earth’s shadow falls across the moon.  This is relatively rare because the sun is big and the earth is not and the universe moves in three dimensions.  It differs from the dark new moon as at those times, the moon is between us and the sun.

The faintest shadow dims the lower right

Something wicked this way comes

Chomp!

Nomnomnom

The fullest extent of the eclipse. Did anyone make shadow puppets?

Fade to grey

Leaving

Say goodbye

Some thoughts of photographing the moon:

– the moon is surprisingly bright.  Use spot metering function on your camera to correctly expose your image, otherwise you’ll have a blown-out white circle

– a tripod really, really helps

– if your lens has image stabilisation or vibration reduction, turn it off.  The slight motion of the motors adjusting your focus will mean you lose precious lunar detail

The best photos of the moon are usually silhouetting something of interest.  I haven’t found something appropriate near me yet, but I haven’t stopped looking either.  I’d also like to try exposing for the red shadow, but I totally forgot about that at the time.

Oh, and I got a great big bite on my bum.  The local mozzies clearly aren’t very appreciative of moderately rare astral phenomenon.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Journey

Thanks to The Wanderlust Gene for turning me onto the WordPress weekly photo challenge.   Any excuse to publish a favourite photo, right?

This was taken at Thawil train station, Zurich, Switzerland.  Not the most obvious hotspot for photography, but I was in the area, with a brand new Canon 550D, a head full of newly-discovered mystical words like aperture and exposure, and some time to kill.

I have to admit here that I’m not generally the kind of photographer who sees an image in her mind, then sets up the world around her to take it.  I’ll never be a decent portrait or art photographer, since if you give me a blank canvas I’ll just look blankly at you.  Sometimes, and really I mean very occasionally sometimes, something does pop to mind, and this is one such example.  I had a lot of fun taking this, spending absolutely ages playing with depth of field and taking my first baby steps to really understanding what it was all about.

As an aside, does anyone actually use their depth of field button on their camera?  I’ve mostly given up; I find the viewfinder too small to really be sure of the effect, and it’s just much easier to take the photo and view it on screen.  I realise this would be different in a film world though!

Anyway, another thing this photo started to teach me was to get to grips with post-processing.  After being happy with it in-camera, I got the photo home and somehow it still just didn’t have the feeling I wanted to convey.  Too many clashing colours, too busy.  With a big sigh of regret I was ready to give up on the image.  However, I do own (and love) Lightroom, and my mouse hovered over a preset and the little preview image changed and I went woah.  This might actually be salvageable.

I used to say I didn’t like obvious post-processing, an opinion generated by my blank canvas phobic brain, I suspect.  This image and many subsequentially have taught me that some images cry out for it.  I don’t take photos with obvious post-processing in mind, aside from some monochrome/sepia, but those little presets can be really inspiring and with adjustments have transformed some of my images from what they looked like in real life to how they seemed when I looked at them through the camera.   As a favourite quote of mine puts it, “I can’t swear is this exactly how it happened, but this is how it felt”¹.

¹ If you can identify that quote without the help of google, then we can be shame buddies.

One of those days

I have to admit, I’m not feeling inspired today.  Today, I feel more like this:

Taken at the London Aquarium early least year.

Tools of the trade

Today I thought I’d give a run-down on my kit, partly in case anyone’s interested but mostly as a note to my future self.  Don’t worry, it should be short; one photography bug I don’t seem to have is the “collect ALL the gear!” one.  I know myself well enough to know my favourite type of photography is wandering around and capturing what I see, and I know I just won’t bother carrying huge bags with multiple lenses.  Of course, the downside is that I’ve lost some photos because I didn’t have with me (or even own) the best lens for the subject, but what can you do you?  Actually, my answer to that is to find a decent telezoom, but more on that later.

I own one DSLR body, a Canon 550D/Rebel T2i/Kiss2. It’s well loved; the eye-piece cushion has fallen off, the rubber grip is coming away from the body; I really need to find a good local camera shop and put the poor ole thing in for repairs.  I really like this camera.  Of course there was, and indeed is, a learning curve with the menus and functionality, but I was impressed with the quality of the photos compared to my previous Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX28 since day one, and as it’s an entry-level DSLR, it didn’t cost the earth.  I was worried that once I upgrade to DLSR, I’d just stick one lens on it and never change.  What’s the point of owning a DLSR then?  So I didn’t want to fork out too much cash initially.

Instead, despite me just saying I don’t want ALL the kit, not only do I get good use out of this camera, but I’m definitely tempted to get a second body, just so I can be more prepared when I’m looking for wildlife; I’ve noticed birds and animals don’t tend to hang around waiting for me to change lenses.  But that’s a big investment, and would I actually use it?  Who knows, maybe I’ll find out one day.

Sadly the lens that lives on this camera the most is the kit 18-55mm lens.  I’ve found it’s the most adaptable for the kind of photography I take.  I’d love to replace it but I’m not sure what with.  Any ideas?

Initially I thought a good superzoom would be a good walk-around lens, and so I tried a Tamron 18-270mm PZD which seems to have lots of good reviews, but I find it slow.  When looking back at the results, I’ve also found it to not be as sharp as any of my other lenses, and for me that’s ruined some otherwise good photos.  But then this is the only superzoom I’ve ever tried; is this to be expected?  I appreciate that there have to be compromises made to achieve such a huge range of angles, but I’m a bit surprised at just how noticeable those compromises are even to my novice eye.  I’d love for Canon to bring out a modern 18-200mm for me to compare it with (hint hint Canon, hint hint!).

My other two favourite lenses are a nice wide Canon 10-22mm USM, which has scored me some great landscapes, and a Canon 70-300mm IS USM.  I LOVE IS.  I had the non-IS version (IS, if you’re not sure, stands for Image Stabilisation, which means there’s gyros and stuff in the lens to counterbalance any shaking in my hands) and the difference in camera-shake is enormous.  I don’t like having to set up a tripod for every single photo so lenses with IS are the only way to go for me.

My only other lens aside from the to-be-sold Tamron is a Canon 50mm 1.8.  A great lens, but this rarely gets out in the field with me, but I do use it at home for experiments and practise shots.

My wish list consists of the as-yet-to-be-built Canon 18-200mm (reviews of the one released in 2008 haven’t sold me on it), a macro lens of some description, and something better than my kit lens with a similar (preferably better) range.  if you have a wish list for photography kit, what’s on yours?

Of course there’s also a pile of accessories, but that’s the subject for another post.  Have instead my very first photo taken with my Canon 550D, on auto (a mode that hasn’t seen the light of day for a very long time now), no post-processing.  This was a poinsettia that, through some miracle that had nothing to do with me, survived long past Christmas (and indeed, into the next two Christmases after, although I never managed to get it to grow red leaves again).