Tag: canon Posts

Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 Review

Product Reviews

I originally wasn’t going to bring my SLR along at all on my trip, mainly because it would take up a pile of room. As the departure day loomed in front of me though, I just couldn’t bring myself to travel the world with only my point and shoot. As a compromise I decided to bring along the Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 lens, which I bought right before coming. On a 1.6x crop factor it acts more like a 44mm lens, which is close to a standard lens but slightly wider. I was hoping that would be a useful field of view for most situations. I find it a little long for walking around the city, but it’s decent enough for doing portraits (although I haven’t done any yet). I probably should have brought along a zoom, but I’ve made do with the prime so far. Anyways, here are a […]

Moving Away From Canon

Photography

Take a look at the photo on the right. If you notice, there are four boxes for Canon Digital Elphs, two boxes for Digital SLRs, and one box for a HD camcorder. That photo was taken almost three years ago now, and since then I believe I’ve had at least one more Canon point and shoot camera. The thing is though, I’m all Canon’ed out. At least in the Point and Shoot realm, I have found myself continually disappointed with the performance of the cameras. Every Digital Elph I’ve owned has suffered from the exact same pixel bleeding issue when exposed to bright lights, such as those in a club. I recently picked up a Canon S90 camera for my trip abroad, and sure enough, it exhibits the exact same problems as every one of its predecessors (despite being one of Canon’s more expensive point and shoots). If you add […]

My Camera Just Isn’t Cutting It

PhotographyTips

This was one of the things I was afraid of. About six months ago I decided to sell off most of my camera gear. Part of that decision was due to the fact that if I was going to go on this trip I would need more money, and my camera gear represented a significant investment ($5,000+) that I could tap into. I could always buy another camera, but I may not always be able to do a trip like this. The second was that I was originally planning on traveling with just a backpack, and there really wouldn’t be any room for a big SLR or lenses. About a month before I left for Buenos Aires, I decided it would probably be smart to bring along a little suitcase of stuff as well. Since I’m in Buenos Aires for three months, and I have a full apartment, there was […]

Camera Gear To Take Traveling

PhotographyPreparation

There was a time when I had over $6,000 worth of camera gear sitting in my computer room. I love photography, and having a whole kit full of professional lens is great to have, but it’s not really very practical to lug that much gear around, especially if you’re trying to travel light. I’ve spent a lot of time over these last few months thinking about what type of camera gear to bring. My first plan was to simply take along a high-end point and shoot camera and make due with that. Given that my old Canon Digital Elph was dying, I went out and bought one of the nicest compact cameras I could find: the Canon PowerShot S90 The Canon S90 was definitely one of the nicest cameras I saw when I was out looking. It sports a 10MP digital sensor and can handle an ISO of up to […]

Canon Introduces New EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II Lens

Photography

Canon has just announced a brand new EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens – the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II. This is one of Canon’s most popular L-series lenses, and is pretty much a must-have for most serious wedding and event photographers. I have the non-IS (image stabilized) version, which works fairly well in most scenarios, but I’ve heard the IS version allows you to hand-hold shots in scenarios where the non-IS version would fail. Here’s some information on it: Canon has improved the optical performance by redesigning the internal elements, incorporating a fluorite element and a fifth UD element to help minimize secondary chromatic aberrations and produce better image quality with improved contrast and resolution through the entire zoom range. The new lens design features improved auto focus speed due to a new focusing algorithm and a shorter minimum focusing distance of 3.9 feet (1.2 meters). It also features improved image […]

Canon S90

Photography

Well, I’m pretty sure this is my next camera. Looks pretty amazing. It’s a small point and shoot Canon camera that has a 28-105mm lens and also goes down to f/2.0. Pretty awesome. Read more about it here.

Canon Back-Button Auto Focus

Photography

I did a photoshoot the other day for a few friends of mine. The shoot was in a big field, at around 4pm in the afternoon. There was lots of light obviously, since it was a sunny day, but the sun was high in the sky and the shadows were pretty harsh. For the most part, I always take a flash outdoors with me now. A long time ago using a flash outside would have seemed silly, but I’ve photographed a few weddings now, and understand that fill flash is required in many outdoor situations to help balance the ambient light. So for this shoot, I brought along my speedlight. While the photos turned out fine, I walked away from the session a bit frustrated with how my camera works, something I’ve done fairly often lately. I’ve retrained myself several times on my camera, trying each time to find a […]

Where The %*(% Is The New Canon EOS 5D?

Photography

Ok seriously. What’s up Canon? Today you announced the new EOS 50D camera, but everyone has been waiting for the new 5D announcement. The 5D is a great camera, but it’s nearly 3 years old already. Since it came out, you’ve released the EOS 20D, the EOS 30D, the EOS 40D and now, the EOS 50D, all with APS-C sensors. We get it, you like the 1.6x crop factor. But it’s time to up the ante. While Nikon is coming out with cool features like HD video, you’re just regurgitating the same formula. At least put out a few 1.3x crop factor cameras or something.

I Haz Video?

Photography

As I alluded to in my previous post today, I’m definitely looking at getting into video sometime in the near future. Considering I ordered a camera shortly after writing that post, “near future” is actually more like “early next week”. I spent a solid twenty minutes or so trying to figure out what type of camera I wanted to purchase, and eventually narrowed it down to a few different ones. In terms of features, I’ve always wanted a camera that could do 24P. Most consumer cameras shoot at 30 frames per second in an interlaced format, which is quite different than how film is shot. Most big budget films are shot in 24 frames per second, so I wanted a camera that could simulate that effect. Right away, that criteria shaved down the available cameras to just a few. The second feature I wanted was optical image stabilization. Without it, […]

New Camera And Video Purchases Soon

Photography

I’ve been saving some money for that last little while, fully expecting to make two purchases in the not too distant future. One of the first items will be a full frame camera body. I was forced to make a purchase of the 40D last year simply because I didn’t trust my current camera enough to shoot a friend’s wedding, but truthfully really wanted to get a full-frame instead. Canon’s only affordable (at least to me) full frame is the Canon EOS 5D, but unfortunately it’s about 3 years old now and doesn’t have a lot of the new bells and whistles in it. Canon has been basically silent on the replacement for it for the last year or so, and I’m wondering if they no longer wish to provide a low-priced full frame going forward. Given that the 5D is around $2000 and that the next full frame is […]