Category: gear

Five Key Elements of Tripod Leg Purchasing

Jason4 Comments


Mac Madness (Mac Systems)

It doesn’t matter whether you are a seasoned veteran or new to the field, the purchase of a tripod  is something that we all consider and eventually make the plunge with in the field of photography.  Let’s face it, we get sharper shots, are forced to plan composition more carefully, and in general, a tripod will improve your photography ten-fold over not using one.  Having said that, there are degrees of effectiveness in a tripod, and as in most things – you typically get what you pay for. Continue reading “Five Key Elements of Tripod Leg Purchasing” →

Practice What You Preach

Jason2 Comments

It’s one thing to come out every day with good solid advice for how to do anything, whether it’s manage your finances, run a business, or (as is the case here), how to take better pictures.  It’s another thing entirely to follow ones’ own advice.  There are countless instructors out there that offer great learning resources, and have an online presence that illustrates how to do things correctly, yet many would have to fall back on the axiom of “Do as I do, not as I say.”  We’re all guilty of this occasionally, but I try to stay more to the side of practicing what I preach. Continue reading “Practice What You Preach” →

It's not the body, it's the glass! (New Canon gear…)

Jason5 Comments

Okay, while everyone is salivating (or slamming) on the new 60D Canon just announced, let’s not forget that it’s not really about the body upgrades – it’s the glass we want to invest in.  And, true to form, there are also a significant number of additions and upgrades to the Canon lens line-up that bear some discussion, so here we go:

Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM lens – Touted as the worlds widest fisheye zoom, it’s an impressive feat, but not many shooters really need such a lens.  At $1400 price point, the price point will likely be too high for many to justify.  Cool factor – high, Use factor –  low.

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens – I believe this is the first L lens in this zoom range, and for that reason, the optical quality will likely see a market improvement.  At a price point of $1500, the reach will appeal to many, but the price compared to the 70-200L f2.8 IS will deter more.  You may lose a little reach, but you gain a stop of light.  Not a lot of reach loss for IS gain!

Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens – The 6th in the continuing series indicates that this is the go-to lens for the serious shooters…i.e. the pros of the sports circuit. The appeal? Drop in overall weight will reduce arm fatigue. The burden? $7 large! (Call your boss to see if accounting will approve it and best of luck!)

Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS II USM lensThe best of the best – a fixed focal length prime and the bees knees of the profession, SI shooters, NFL, MBL, NHL, etc – if you are looking here for advice on whether to drop the $11,000 on this lens, I want to know why! Buyers of this grade of optics are the companies with budgets larger than my annual salary my many multipliers!

Canon Extender EF 1.4x III & Canon Extender EF 2x III At $500 a piece it’s really just improved optics. For each it also represents light loss – one stop versus two. if optics are important and light isn’t, the 2X is your choice. Add reach and minimize light loss – the 1.4X. A more cost effective approach – neither at this price!

*****

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Hardware Review: Sigma 4.5mm Fisheye (Circular)

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Sigma 4.5mm f2.8 Circular Fisheye
Sigma 4.5mm f2.8 Circular Fisheye

As things start to settle down again, I’ve got a pile of reviews pending work, so this past weekend, while in bachelor status temporarily, I really knocked out a few projects, including getting caught up on some overdue reviews and blog writing.  Today, the first of these projects is the Sigma 4.5mm fisheye lens review.  This is a super cool lens, and has a lot of opportunities for creative exploration.  I took the typical test shots indoors to get a feel for where it’s strengths and weaknesses are, how it focuses, and then took to the streets. Continue reading “Hardware Review: Sigma 4.5mm Fisheye (Circular)” →

The Droid Hath Come

Jason6 Comments

That’s right folks – the time has come for an upgrade to my rinky dinky 1990’s flip phone.  I’ve gotten with the decade and upgraded to a Droid from Motorola (yes, I am on Verizon).  The upgrade was pretty smooth, although the “tech” at Best Buy had trouble migrating my contacts over.  Since I use Gmail for most of my contact info anyway, I figured it would migrate in pretty seamlessly once I got online and sure enough, everything pulled down no problem.

So, how is this related to photography?  Well, I can now take and share 5 MP photos with much more ease.  The Droid also has an app for Audioboo, so I can go back to creating audio shorts regularly on all things photography too.  Plus, as photographers, let’s face it, we are gadget-hounds, and this is definitely a gadget worth considering.  Here’s a couple pics I took of the Droid the other day:

Droid Main Screen

There’s the Main screen of the Droid, with my own wallpaper already selected as the background.  The audio port is the 3.5mm standard, and another neat feature I like is the micro-USB port for charging and tethering to a computer (that’s right, tethering to a computer!)  Check it out:

Droid Main Screen

And, the headphone jack which is right next to the on/off button – makes it easy to find and access:

Headphone jack

And, last but not least – the 5 MP camera!  This is probably what I am most excited about!

Droid Camera

If you’d like to see some actual pics from the camera… check out the new blog I set up just for that purpose.  I’ll try to post a shot or two every day over at:  www.mydroidpics.com

That’s it for today, but more photo goodness coming tomorrow, but I can’t tell you yet (it’s a surprise!)…happy shooting and we’ll see you then!

Building the Perfect Camera, Pt. 2

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As you may recall, I recently started a topic on building the perfect camera.  I started listing my favorite “wish list” of features, and promised I would continue the list soon.  Well, as luck would have it, that “thread” of content continues today!  Here is the next set of five features I’d like to see:

  1. Megapixels – I really don’t make huge prints…16×20 is my usual upper limit, and if I need to go higher, post production tools can usually handle a notch or two higher.  So, for my purposes, I really wouldn’t want more than 15 MP.  Call me crazy, but I’d rather see larger pixels that blend nicer than smaller ones that produce more noise.
  2. Video – Yeah, it’s a staple in the P&S category and slowly creeping into the SLR ranks, so I may as well add it in here.  But let’s not get all lame and only throw in low end video quality…and if you think I’ll settle for the HD-like caliber of 720p, you’d be mistaken.  No, make it the full HD 1080p!  It’s already arrived, so also being realistic! 🙂
  3. Frame Rate – SLR’s ar ranging anywhere from 3 to as many as 18 fps.   I am not trying to capture a speeding bullet, nor am I a sports shooter for the NFL, but a frame rate on the order of 6-10 fps (raw) would be ideal.  Since I am only asking for a Megapixel count of roughly 15, it’s not like the sensor would be hard pressed, so again, very  realistic here, right?
  4. HDMI support – The Canon 1D Mark IV has it, so it clearly will become a staple of at least the higher end model SLR’s if it isn’t already, so I’d better have it here.  Besides, the ability to directly display movies and photos directly on your HD TV would be super cool!
  5. Internal wireless and Bluetooth – the EyeFi card is a neat technology, but really?  Think of the space a wireless card takes up these days and there is easily room inside an SLR body for that.  Let me push my jpgs from shoots directly to the web for sharing.  As for the Bluetooth, imagine being able to shoot and have your images pushed directly to a hard drive of 500GB sitting in your back pocket?  Awesome!

Forget the first five features?  Stop back here to give those a read and share your comments there.  Or, if you haven’t commented yet (or even if you have and there’s more you’d like to share) be sure to chime in with your own thoughts and feature requests for the ideal camera!  There’s more to come, but I promise, we’re almost done, so be sure to stop back some time soon for yet another 5 features in the DREAM CAMERA!  Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!  Any features you’ve thought of that I am still missing?  Care to share?  Don’t forget to sound off in the comments!

I’d also like to take a moment and thank those of you who have been perusing the archives of the blog.  Enough people have commented that the “49 Tips Cheat Sheet” I posted back in 2009 was missing that I decided to re-publish on request.  It’s available in the store tab here for a “Dollar Download”.  (Most attachments get deleted after being in the archives for 30 days, so here’s your chance to get a very handy guide for about 2 cents per tip!)

Last, but not least, a reminder that we’re starting to wrap up March as the halfway point has officially passed, so be sure to get your photos up in the Flickr contest thread for a chance to win a Cheetah Quickstand.  Details here.

Building the Perfect Camera, Pt. 1

Jason6 Comments

One of the more recent episodes from the guys over at This Week in Photography had them wrapping up their coverage of PMA, where they talked tech about all the latest cameras to come out from the various vendors.  Canon was noticeably absent from the show, but it didn’t detract from an interesting comment I think Ron Brinkmann said where he wished he could pull all his favorite features from each of the cameras and basically make his own.

To me, the idea screamed “blog post”!  So, I decided to go for it.  I went through every major SLR on the market today and cherry-picked my favorite features from each camera.  It took a while (there’s a lot out there), but I kept on plugging at it for a few days.  Finally, I’ve completed the list, and here’s my “perfect camera” wish list:

  1. Full Frame Sensor – It seems the market is trending this way, and while the added zoom on a crop sensor can be nice, I’d love to see my 10-22 on a full frame body!
  2. EF-S support – This is Canon-specific, but because of my 10-22 and 18-55, I would really love to get that super wide angle on a full frame without vignetting or fisheye distortion…I know, the impossible dream, but hey, it’s not like such a camera will ever really exist, so I may as well dream, right?
  3. Low Light Performance – Think Nikon here – they’re beating the pants off pretty much everyone in the market with their low light sensitivity and handling.
  4. ISO handling – the fact that you can shoot at ISO 102400 is pretty amazing, but the noise is crazy.  Sure, I’ll take the high ISO, but at least let me make decent prints from it.  This kind of ties into the low light performance, but since it’s a separate spec, why not…
  5. Multi-card compatibility – Lately more cameras are supporting the CF and the SD format cards, but mine currently does not support the latter, so, it’s on my list!

That’s it?  Of course not, but do you really want me to list ALL the features I want to see in my dream camera in ONE SUPER LONG POST?  Of course not!  I wouldn’t want to read that either, no matter who wrote it!  So, I’m saving the other segments for another day soon (hint, hint, hint)!  I’m not even sure this is my “Top Five”, but it could be close.  I dunno, is it worth it doing a “top five” features list?  Would you?  Also consider this:  what is your dream camera?  What are the must have features for you?  How much would you pay to have them all under one hood?  I know it’d be a pretty penny, but think about how useful and how long it would last you…!  Sound off in the comments with your favorite features!

Don’t forget, the March Flickr Giveaway is underway where you can win a Cheetah Stand, so make sure you enter your favorite WILD pic today!