Well friends, I’ve now bought the lighting equivalents of pots, pans and knives and read a few cookbooks (1, 2, 3), so I’m ready to cook! Cook with light, that is, using off-camera flash. Once the basic principles are clear, all it takes is some fresh ingredients, a healthy dose of imagination and not being afraid to experiment.
I might still pick up an item or two along the way, but this is all that’s really need for shooting off-camera flash:
The AF of a Canon 40D Leaves Much to be Desired
Call me lazy or call me clumsy if you want, but auto focus has become extremely important for me. I have to concentrate on so many things when I photograph, that I don’t want to have to worry about AF too. But dang it, I’m tired of things like these:
I’m amazed — I’ve owned my Epson 3800 printer for over two years now, and tonight was the very first time that I needed to replace an ink cartridge. Light light black ran out first, but it will soon be followed by light black and light magenta. As you see in the status window below, the other colors still have a long way to go. Epson suggests that the cartridges should be used up within a year of opening them, but I do not print that often, so it took me quite a bit longer to even get to this point. And — no problems yet! 
I’ve had more free time lately, so I’ve been photographing more often and also sorting and rating my photographs from the past 12 months. In a sense I’ve been rediscovering my hobby, and I’ve started feeling the desire for a full-frame camera again: less DOF, better high-ISO performance, larger viewfinder, no conversion factor, etc. Although 6 months ago I decided that I don’t need a full-frame body, I allowed myself to at least consider the alternatives and get informed. Since size and weight matter to me, and I’ve never had much interest in Minolta or Sony, I’m left with two choices: Nikon D700 and Canon 5D mark II.
So I read up on the Nikon: the baby D3 is nevertheless big, heavy and expensive, but it’s very, very appealing. It’s a true photographer’s camera: absolute top AF and high-ISO performance, excellent viewfinder, easy mirror lock-up, built-in viewfinder blind, etc, etc, etc. For a moment I even considered switching from Canon to Nikon. Now, this is all just a mental game, so I went through the exercise.
Only few things remained unchanged from the times of film, but the following truth still holds: choosing a camera body forces you to choose a camera system. My current system consists of a wide-angle zoom, a normal prime, a portrait prime, a tele-zoom, a flash and a remote release, and I am a big fan of Canon’s f/4 zooms. I’ve found the 17-40, 24-105 and 70-200 to hit the optimal compromise between size, weight, price and optical quality, and I was very disappointed to find out that all of Nikon’s high-quality FX zooms are f/2.8. They might be better than Canon’s, especially the wide-angles ones, but the extra stop brings a along a huge penalty in size, weight and price.
Still, Nikon’s appeal was so strong, that I went to Calumet and played with a D700 and a 24-70/2.8. Pretty quickly, with a pinch of regret and a huge sigh of relief, I decided that the combo is too large and heavy, too expensive to simply toss it in the trunk of the car, and the 24-70 is too short for a one-lens combination.
So while I find the D700 to be the perfect body for a serious amateur like me, the FX zooms are clearly “too professional” for me. If Nikon made a series of f/4 zooms, my life would become very difficult, but as things are, I’m back to my three old options:
Alternative 1 is already very good, but alternatives 2 and 3 have the following advantages:
The last two points are very important to me, because I’ve had problems with dust and missed shots in India, both due to constantly changing lenses.
About a year ago I wrote about my favorite AF setting, and I’m happy to report that I’m as enthusiastic as ever about it. The basic idea is that I do not want the shutter release to activate the AF system. On my Canon 30D I
A half-press of the shutter button now activates the exposure lock and a full-press releases the shutter, a quick press of the exposure-lock button focuses the lens once, a press-and-hold focuses continuously. So now I have the choice of
all without taking my eye away from the viewfinder. This setting absolutely rocks for street or photojournalistic type of photography. Plus it’s perfect for portraits because I can focus once, then take a series of images where the subject varies his or her facial expressions, and I don’t need to go through the “focus-then-recompose” before each image.
When I recently got a new Canon 40D, I found out that there is no custom function 4 any more. Instead there are groups of custom functions, and on the back of the camera there is a new button called “AF ON.”
I’ve been able to achieve a very similar AF functionality on the Canon 40D to that of the 30D by setting C. FnIV-1 (Shutter button/AF-ON button) to 3 (AE lock/Metering + AF start) and C. FnIV-2 (AF-ON/AE lock utton switch) to 1 (Enable).
I recommend these settings wholeheartedly, but if you decide to try them out, plan at least two weeks for the transition and make sure you don’t have any important shoots during that time. Otherwise you might end up with a bunch of out-of-focus photos…
I’ve been preaching for years that if one knows how to sharpen properly, then 8-10 megapixel (MP) is enough for A3 prints. So when Panasonic and Olympus recently released new cameras with new sensors but still with 12 MP, I took that as an indication that the MP wars are over.
Well, wishful thinking my friends! 
In March 2009 Canon released a new body in their entry-level series, the EOS 500D, with a 15.1 MP sensor. On an entry-level body!!! What for??? By the way, this is the same sensor found in the Canon 50D, on which Harold Merklinger reported on Luminous Landscape in December 2008. He found out that the resolution of this 15.1 MP sensor exceeds the resolution of many top-notch Canon lenses, including some L-series lenses, at their optimum aperture!!!
Please, let’s stop and think about this for a second! The users of the Rebel bodies usually know almost nothing about aperture numbers and shutter speeds, let alone optimal apertures. They usually own one or two cheap zooms with laughable resolving power and no tripod of any kind. So what do these photographers need 15.1 MP for?!?! Somebody please enlighten me…
Anyhow, enough whining. I drew my consequences out of the MP wars and bought me a new old camera — a Canon 40D. It’s been discontinued for about 6 months now, so if you find any new stock, the prices are excellent. I was lucky to find a 40D for 665 €, so I didn’t hesitate for long. My Canon 30D is 3.5 years old and if it broke two months from now (which I don’t think it will), I’d have to buy a 50D or a 60D in a hurry. For those who’ve already forgotten the 40D, here is a comparison with the 30D.
By the way, the new 21 MP Canon 5D markII body (which I wanted to have) has a higher MP count than the 50D, but being a full-format body, its pixel pitch is lower. In that same article Harold Mecklinger reports that the 5Dmk2 is OK with most L-series lenses, and that’s good news. However before Canon increases the pixel count once again, they need to upgrade virtually all their lenses. The 85/1.2 II and most super-teles can remain unchanged, but all others need a resolution boost.
This is what happens to a perfectly clean dSLR sensor after 12 days of shooting in dry and dusty India. I guess if I’m making a trip longer than two weeks I’ll have to carry sensor-cleaning “tools” in addition to everything else…
Since I have a small photo opportunity tonight, I’ll clean the sensor immediately.
If I were to really, and I mean really stretch my budget, I could get a Canon 5D mark II (5DmkII). And if I were to ever get it, now is the ideal moment — so I’d be able to use it on my upcoming trip to India. So, should I?
What would be the advantages of a full-frame body for me personally?
If I were to get a full-format camera, I’d use the 17-40 for 19% of my shots, the 50mm lens 16%, the 70-200 lens 40% of the time, and I’d miss or have to crop 25% of all shots! So for me no crop-factor seems to be a disadvantage.
Unfortunately, the 5DmkII also has several other disadvantages:
So, what to do? It seems that the Canon 5D Mark II produces mixed feelings, and in my case the negatives seems to outweigh by a good margin. So what are the alternatives?
And the winner is … alternative 5: stay with the 30D for as long as it works and concentrate on the images.
OK — it’s not even middle of February, but what the heck — I nominate Blues Caravan for act of the year 2009. What a performance!
They are white, young and good looking, so what the hell do they know about the blues?! Well, I don’t know what it is, but they’ve got it! If you like electric blues, go and see them!
I was in “Die Fabrik” tonight, and it was a great concert. Joanne Shaw Taylor started it up, Oli Brown stepped up a notch and Erja Lyytinen with “Steamy Windows” absolutely lit up the crowd. And then, over two hours in total, it kept getting even better.
I’d completely forgotten about the concert, so I only had my digicam with me (but I did have it!). At first I thought I shouldn’t even bother, with the low light, fast-moving subjects and all, but I couldn’t resist and took a few shots. I put the Ixus in manual mode, chose auto ISO, turned off the flash and I fired away. The AF was very slow and unreliable, the shutter speeds were too long, and the shutter released about half a second after I’d pressed the button, but hey — I still got a few decent images. And I like the dreamy and blurred look of the photos.
BTW, Canon calls this shooting mode “manual,” but focus and exposure are still determined automatically. What you can do is turn the flash off, set a custom white balance or dial in exposure compensation.
Before you accuse me of too much Photoshop reickery let me assure you that all images, also the first one, are straight out of the camera. I don’t know how, but for the first image I’d somehow manged to put the camera into a funky custom white balance, and for whatever reason the blown highlights were rendered orange. I like the result very much!
I recently wrote that since my dSRL is too large to carry along at all times I’ve been missing some photo opportunities. Consequently I did some market research and bought a Canon PowerShot SD870 IS (called Digital IXUS 860 IS in Germany). This digicam is quite recent but no longer in production. Its main advantage over its current brethren is the relatively low pixel count — 8 MP instead of 10 or 14 — and its advantage over the more advanced models (G10, etc.) is its small size.
I’ve now had the Ixus for a week, but I haven’t taken any images with it yet. The reason is the old one — no camera at hand when I need it. Even though I put the Ixus in my work-briefcase, I still didn’t have it with me when I went shopping, picked up a friend from the train station or walked over to the cafeteria for lunch.
I now vow to put the camera in my pocket and have it within reach at all times! Hmmm, isn’t that funny? I just promised to carry my digicam everywhere I carry my cell-phone. Maybe they should finally build a cell-phone with a reasonable camera in it. Or, since digicams are larger as cell-phones, integrate a cell-phone into a digicam?
Anyhow, let’s see if I get into the habit of taking the Ixus everywhere with me and if I have any images to share with you next week…
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