photography – Page 2

Canon EOS 550D

As hinted in my previous post I’ve finally done it. I’ve bought a Canon EOS 550D. This is my first DSLR and quite a step up from Panasonic TZ5 point and shoot I currently use. Since the first reviews came out I’ve been pretty convinced about the camera. Great stills coupled with an excellent video mode made it a fairly straight forward choice.

One issue was that friends are all Nikon users so I could borrow lenses but this quote from DPReview sums up my feelings on the 550D.

With all this taken into account, it is hard not to recommend the EOS 550D. Quite simply, taken as a whole, it is the best camera of its class that we’ve ever seen, and one of those rare cameras that won’t look out of date in a couple of years’ time.

The Nikon vs Canon debate is like Mac vs PC. Timeless with no clear winner and no doubt banter for the next few years between me and Shakeel. For me the camera body was the easy bit. The real difficulty was in choosing a lens. So much choice, and prices ranging from around £100 to a few thousand. I’ve been trying to decide for a few weeks now. One choice I did make early on was to pick up a ‘nifty fifty‘, a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8. This is a cheap lens with low build quality but is optically very good. My first pic with the lens was Ollie the Twitterrific mascot.

I was pretty chuffed with this as my first picture. I think the lens will turn out to be a great purchase. The real difficulty was sorting out a lens that would cover all other bases. So many choices, so many reviews, so many opinions. I started off looking at lenses around the £900 mark but I had no real idea if the lens would be good for me, suit the majority of my shots. So I dropped my budget and ended up with something a bit more affordable, but with some compromises – Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM. Not too hot indoors but the nifty fifty will cover that, has some barrel issues but overall is a great lens for walk about purposes which is going to be the majority of my shots, at least in the next few months.

Got a few other things to sort now. A bag, tripod, maybe some filters if I get totally hooked (which probably means a yes) but most of all I’m looking forward to getting out and about and experimenting with the camera. Happy days.

Camera Thoughts

Over the last 9 years I’ve owned three different digital camera’s. A Fuji FinePix 6800, a Sony DSC-P200 and my current camera, the Panasonic DMC-TZ5. Each has seen an increase in quality and features and I still love my current camera. Compact but takes a great picture on a hill walk. But I’ve got an itch. That itch is the Canon EOS 550D.

I’ve said for quite a while I had no interest in getting a DSLR. Bulky, expensive and while I liked taking photo’s it wasn’t enough to make me invest. So whats changed? The hill walking has got me out and about a lot more than I used to. I’ve loved taking the photo’s as we visit different places around Scotland. I also think back to mine and Shak’s little tour around London just over a year ago. Again, I really enjoyed the photo taking and also getting the most out of the images via Lightroom. Final reason – video. Current camera takes video and at 720p but the quality isn’t the best so I’ve been thinking about getting a dedicated video camera. The video quality of the 550D looks to be excellent.

So, thats it then. Decision made. Mmmm, not quite. I’m still swithering. The cost is one reason. Once the camera is bought there’s the little matter of lenses. There’s a bewildering range from Canon, never mind the third party offerings. I’ve spent the last few days trying to pick my first lens or two and I’m no closer to settling on anything. Then there’s all the other little things – memory cards, bag and tripod plus all the other little things that I’ll get sucked into buying. I’m even struggling with how best to carry the new gear, if I get it, on my walks. Probably another 1-2 kg’s of weight and need to work out where best to carry it to make it accessible but keep it safe.

Despite my grumblings, no doubt I’ll post in a few weeks time about how impressed I am with the new camera. Once my mind is 90% there then that’s usually enough. One thing that Shakeel did mention was the number of stories around photographers being stopped by police and asked for details under section 44 of the terrorism act. I had seen a video by a Paul Lewis, a Guardian journalist, from last year of how the police challenged him using Section 44. I’d also heard of I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist which was setup to chronicle and fight the growing fear that photographers were being tagged as terrorists. As I dug a little bit more I was shocked by the growing number of photographers who were being challenged by police.

For example student Simona Bonomo was arrested, held in a cell and fined for photographing buildings in London. While you might think this a London only problem Robert Norbury from Leeds was challenged for filming buskers. One of the worst examples I found was Bob Patefield who refused to give his name and was arrested as police said picture he took at Christmas in Accrington town centre were suspicious and amounted to anti-social behaviour. Wow.

Media reporting on this topic has been sending out mixed messages. Back in Dec 09, The Independent reported that the Association of Chief Police officers had sent out a statement saying:

“Everyone… has a right to take photographs and film in public places. Taking photographs… is not normally cause for suspicion and there are no powers prohibiting the taking of photographs, film or digital images in a public place.”

Sounds good. Then on Jan 12, the BBC reported that the European Court of Human Rights rules that it was illegal for the police to use anti terror laws to stop and search people without suspicion. Sounds great except that the UK government is likely to appeal the decision. There’s a great article in The Times today that covers all the points so far and gives out some tips on what to do if you are stopped. Hopefully if (when) I do get the new camera’s it’s advice I’ll never need. We live in scary times.

Tilt Shift

Great example of tilt shift. Love the video and the music too.

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

London Calling

While down in Peterborough over New Year visiting Shakeel instead of the usual spend on gadgets and playing of games we took a trip down to London, booking the London Eye and taking advantage of a cold but sunny winters day. It was also a chance to get some photography done – we were tourists for the day!

First stop was St Pancras station which has been newly redeveloped. It really is quite magnificent. There’s something about glass roofs that I really like. There’s also a nice mix of old and new architecture and the restoration is pretty faultless. I guess we were lucky as when we were there the station was very quiet so we got to take our photo’s without too much hassle. Full set can be viewed on Flickr.

After some pictures around Westminster it was on to the London Eye. After lot’s of queueing we finally got on, although we did manage to ‘jump’ about half of the queue which was nice – it was too cold to feel embarrassed. The hazy winters sun started to clear as we ascended and we got quite a lot of good pictures. The view in the summer must look amazing on a clear day. What was strange was there was no real sense of motion – it moved so slowly that you didn’t feel it at all. The full set of photos can be seen here. One shot I really wanted to get was a panoramic – stitching together lots of photo’s to get a wrap around view of London. It didn’t quite work out due to the low sun and the ever changing perspective but the result isn’t too bad as long as you don’t look to close – it’s also pretty wide at 18702 x 1614 pixels!

After that it was a walk around Horse Guards parade, St James’s park and Buckingham Palace. All very nice but by this time I was getting extremely cold. I really should have wrapped up a bit better than I did. It was a great day though and really enjoyable. It took quite a while to get the photo’s sorted and uploaded. I initially took over 600 photo’s but ended up with 140 published on Flickr. I also used Lightroom for the first time and I’m now hooked. So much more control over the image than in iPhoto. Just a shame that iPhoto 09 is coming with really nice albums and iPhone syncing. If only iPhoto worked like Picasa and managed photo’s in there own locations without having to suck/copy them into iPhoto’s library. I hate duplication.

Couple of things I need to remember when taking a photo. I don’t spend enough time watching where I’m taking a photo from. Lot’s of photo’s were slightly off centre from what I wanted to or were from a bad angle just because I didn’t think the photo through. I also need to work on not shaking as much – even with image stabilisation switched on I had a couple of disappointing photo’s. My favourite photo from the day though is the one below of Shakeel in the London Eye capsule. Just captures him really well. His full set of photo’s from London are also up at Flickr – he took some really great shots, even some of the ones without me in the picture are good. Hopefully this is the start of a lot more photo’s this year as is something I really enjoy doing.

Panasonic TZ5

My old Sony P200 (only 2 1/2 years old so not much) was a good camera for me but had developed some dead pixel issues that meant every picture needed cleaning up before publishing. Not that I need an excuse to upgrade gadgets but that was good enough for me to try the Panasonic TZ5. I’ve had it for over a week now so thought it was time to publish some thoughts so far.

The camera is a pretty typical point and shoot but has a couple of key features that really appealed to me. It has a 10x optical zoom which for a camera this size is very nice to have. It also shoots 720p video which while I don’t intend doing a lot of is still a plus point compared to other camera’s at this price point. It also allows you to shoot pictures in 16:9 format which is also a useful feature.

Build Quality
The camera feels good in the hand. One handed use is very comfortable and there’s a nice grip strip at the front of the camera. The zoom controls surround the shutter which makes it really quick to zoom, focus and take a picture. However there a couple of things I don’t like. Firstly the main control dial feels a bit cheap compared to the rest of the camera. It’s like a bit of plastic stuck on to the camera and doesn’t give much feedback when used. Worse is the lens cover. While it looks quite substantial if you give it a poke you realise its very flimsy indeed. A camera case or a secondary lens cover is essential which is a shame as the camera doesn’t come with one as standard. The rest of the controls are well positioned and I really like the large screen. Clarity is excellent even in daylight. One other negative – the microphone quality is shocking. I’d go as far to say useless. Thankfully thats the main negatives out of the way.
Continue reading “Panasonic TZ5”

Flickr Picnik

Photo editing has arrived at Flickr. It makes use of Picnik and having a play around this morning it looks very easy to use and pretty feature rich. You can easily edit any photo, add effects, play with contrast and colours, resize and crop and also apply an ‘auto fix’.

It’s nice to have these tools online as opposed to on your computer. Not all photo’s need Aperture or Lightroom and it’s great you can do this editing from anywhere while easily saving results within Flickr. I wonder if it works on the iPhone?

Flickr Love

Flickr added some new features over the last day or so, one of which combines my love of stats and technology. Firstly the two mundane updates. They’ve updated their Flickr mobile site (http://m.flickr.com) making it easier to type and use while adding some new options. This feature hasn’t changed in ages so it’s nice to see it getting some attention.

Also new is ‘Guest Pass’. Invite up to 50 other guests to view your friends and family pictures. A great way to invite non Flickr members to see your photo’s. The nice part of this feature is that you are in control of who gets the pass, what they can see and how long they have access for. Finally onto the geek feature.

Using Camera Finder you can see the most popular camera’s in use at Flickr and also find photo’s from actual users of the camera your thinking of buying. What better way of confirming a good review than seeing other people’s results for yourself. Whats nice is that browsing through each camera (my DSC-P200 for example) you can filter not only interesting shots but also from a range including macro, night and landscape. Great to see what each camera can be capable off in the right hands.

Flickr’s use of photo metadata is really smart – it will be interesting to see how new camera’s affect the charts over time and also what other stats and search options can be added to Flickr. Can it get better? Yes! Subsets please! While I’m alkinh photo’s, interesting post on The Truth about Digital Camera’s – comments also worth a read.