I am sorry if my articles seems to be ads for Canon equipment, but its just that I have settled down on only getting Canon gear. Why? Well because I feel more at ease that I get what I pay for. My experience so far is that it is worth the extra cost. I have seen too many Sigma lenses fail, Tamron glass that is terrible and one more plastic than the other. Do not get me wrong, Canon has some turkeys too, and the other brands also have some very good lenses. The Sigma EX series is pretty good from what I hear, the new Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro is very good.
So why Canon you might ask? Its because thats what I chose the first time on, and thats what I feel comfortable with. If you like Nikon you should stick to that. Mind you, the new D70 is a very nice starter SLR if you dont have one. I think its better than the Canon 300D in almost all aspects, but not quite the 10D. One thing I did love about the D70 was the short startup time. The 10D feels like an old hog compared to that. I am quite sure Canon will change that in future products. Also, the chances are that I will upgrade to other Canon SLRs, so the lenses will still be working fine on the new equipment. I really dont like the trend of "Digital lenses" which even Canon has made for the 300D. Digital lens for me means: "we dont have to make good glass in the edges anymore since the sensors are only using the center". That and the fact that the moment you upgrade your camera, your chances are that you have to get rid of your old lenses too, either they vignette a lot or they are useless in the borders, or they simply dont fit the new SLR. Also, the megapixels of today are better off getting a bigger chip than pushing more into the small sensors. Why? Because image quality suffers. Just look at todays 8 Mpix prosumer cameras and compare them with a 6 Mpix SLR. The 10D has an APS-C sized chip. The 1D Mark II a bit bigger, and if you look at the image quality of the Canon 1Ds pictures you will see what a full size 35mm sensor is able to produce. So do yourself a favour, stick to glass meant for the full 35mm and your gear will live longer (unless you start dropping it the concrete like I do).
A friend of mine has a Pentax ist, which is also a very nice digital SLR. Its small and lightweight if you dont like the typical lumpy SLR builds of Canon. I kind of prefer the weight and size of the 10D, I guess it grows on you. A heavy SLR is most likely to cause less camerashake if you still havent gotten that coffee yet. But my friend also mentioned something good about the Pentax, and that is that it is a pretty unknown brand, which again makes it less visible for thieves in the busy streets of some big city. Contrast this with Canon 10D which has a big strap saying "CANON DIGITAL", it might as well have said "HEY STEAL ME, I AM WORTH A BUNDLE". Well, you get what you like. I kinda like Canon, so thats what I stick with, and I guess if I talk gear here, it will be Canon gear unless I am awed by something another brand has made.
Monday, May 17, 2004
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2 comments:
Yes that is true. Digital lenses cant be used on 35mm film cameras. Thats why I recommend that people stick with lenses that will do well on full size 35mm area. Even Nikon have full size sensors coming up in cameras now.
As for black and white, I mainly use the channel mixer in Paint Shop Pro (or Photoshop). Being able to shoot black and white film and understand the filters needed is of course a nice way of getting exactly the results you want. I guess my black and whites are more "accidental" in that case, since I usually try mixing the channels after to get the best version.
Well, I do not have too much experience with printing in black and white. I have made some A4 prints on a normal Epson Stylus 895 printer which I liked, and some I have developed in a lab. I am not quite sure what is the best way to print black and white. I guess you have to try different things and see how it works for you. I mainly do color work so maybe in time it will become an issue for me too.
I can understand the pleasure of a darkroom after a full day in front of the computer, working full time as a programmer I too often find it hard to sit with my computer back home. But somehow I try to balance it. I still prefer digital dark-rooms to normal ones. I kinda got sick from the developing fluids and all the processing, not to mention the red filtered vision when I got out of the room. And I kept missing the "Undo" button when I did something wrong. :-)
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