May 2011: elf's Canon 50D Journal

From Pfoto 2011

Update Thu 05 May 2011 09:51:20 AM EDT: I am considering erasing that entire car out of the photo.

I cancelled my X100 order a week ago and decided instead to wait for the revised model. There were two reasons which compelled me to cancel the order: the (extended) delay in getting the camera and both Michael Reichmann's and David Pogue's reviews of the camera. All other things being equal, the only advantage the X100 has over the 50D is the compact size.

I used my two-year-old 50D camera as a baseline of features I required in a replacement camera— for approximately the same price ($1,200) I wanted all the features in the 50D and more. The X100 lacked important features I could not compromise in a replacement camera:

• very fast focus, especially in low light (easy with a good prime lens)
• very fast wake-up time from sleep (2s is too long; I only shut off my 50D when I am going to recharge the battery; otherwise it's sleeping and it wakes up in the blink of an eye.)
• excellent battery life (with the 50D I can go 3 days of casual shooting between charges or a full day (10h) on a single charge.)
• the corded battery charger (it bothered me from an aesthetics standpoint; my Canon S30 camera from 2001 had a battery charger with a flip-prong; in 2011, the only reason to have a cord with a plug at the end of it is design laziness).
• better button ergonomics (Reichmann complained that the buttons were not properly space which caused accidental presses; just imagine what it would be like to shoot in the winter with gloves on.)

I expect a lot from a $1200 camera.

So I am now waiting for Fuju's X100 revision or Canon and Nikon's competing product. I hope Japan recovers soon from the earthquake and I hope 2012 will be a superb year for photography.

From Friday Foto

Today's photo begins a series with photographs featuring a dominant colour. It is a photograph of storm clouds with a few trees at the bottom to give the scene some scale.

There was some (utility pole) wire removal and lots of noise reduction. Despite having the camera stabilised against a post, I was shooting at f/1.6, ISO400, 1/20s; ISO800 would have been too noisy.

From Friday Foto

Continuing with the theme of dominant colours, this is a photo of the trunk of a bonsai-esque decorative tree.

TIME Magazine paid The Strobist $31.50 for the use of one of his photographs (from a stock photo site) for their cover. The going rate for a TIME cover is $3,000-$10,000; this seems to have upset a lot of photographers.

The world's most expensive photo cost $3,890,500 only because one rich person wanted it and someone else wanted it more..

The summer 2011 edition of the university's alumni magazine used a photograph I took, of a researcher working at the recently opened Centre for Urban Energy.

Below is the contact sheet of the entire shoot. The last photo in the contact sheet is the final cropped and sharpened photograph that was sent to the publishers; just above it is the original photograph that was chosen by the marketing guy and the subject.

Update 24 May 2011 11:56:57 PM: The biggest lesson learned from doing this shoot was: know the background of the subject before the shoot so you can come up with different ideas to experiment with during the shoot. I found out his background about 5 minutes before (his research was on solar panels) and the best I could come up with in that short time was using the orange shades as a pseudo-solar panel.

A few days later I thought that having him stand in the sun and use his fingers to block the sun and cast shadows on his face, would have made for a more interesting photograph.

From Friday Foto

Another dominant colour photograph.

The fundamentals of taking great photographs are very simple: have your camera with you; slow down; actually take the photograph.

I agree wholeheartedly!

I found a lengthy (6-day) review of the Fuji X100. It mentions, poor metering, ISO setting access being buried in the menus, slow wake-up, poor battery and slow indoor focussing.

Fuji also announced a firmware upgrade to deal with issues that dpreview noted in their review. I don't think a firmware upgrade will change my mind about this camera. It is a fundamentally flawed desing when the ISO setting is not available either as a dial or at your finger tips— aperture, shutter and ISO are the three main controls that any photographer needs.