Eblo

New Camera (Canon Digital Rebel)

So I finally got the camera of my dreams, a digital SLR. Specifically, it's the Canon Digital Rebel (300D), so selected to make use of the small but handy array of lenses, filters, etc., we've amassed for use with our film Rebels.

I LOVE this camera. The first batch of sample photos are here. Note, I don't know that those will be there permanently, so if the link stops working, that's why. Most of them are experimantal crap, but some of the results were cool anyway. Some just need to be deleted.

A few throughts. First, it amazes me how similarly to film the CMOS sensor reacts to light. You can do cool stuff like this, or this.

IMG_0394: 30-Second Shutter

Note that the photos in that gallery were never touched by gimp or photoshop. Other than resizing, those are right from the camera. You'll notice if you look at the big version of the darker one, that there is a tradeoff just like film. Crank up the ISO speed for the 'film,' and you get grainieness. IMG_0394 is at ISO 1600. Hmmm grainy goodness. IMG_0196 is at ISO 200. Milky silky.

IMG_0196: Multiple Flash Firing

BTW, when looking at a specific photo in the gallery, if you click the 'photo properties' in the upper right, you can see what settings the photo was shot with. Pretty cool.

Regarding digital versus film, I have mixed feelings. Some uses of Photoshop seem like cheating to me. But the same might be said of what are now standard darkroom 'tricks.' I think it's cheating if you present the result as something it's not. Otherwise it's just another technique. It is certainly advantageous to get instant gratification (or disppointment) regarding your pictures. And I think this does make photography easier because you're likely to try more/stranger
things because there's no film/processing to buy and you can always delete what doesn't work out. Plus you're more likely to learn from your mistakes if you can see the results RIGHT after you make them. But a whiz-bang camera and mastery of the mouse won't make up for a lack of composition or timing. Not totally, anyway. Which is not to say that I have a great eye or anything. But it can only get better with practice. Or by taking 50x more pictures than I would on film, I'm just increase my odds of 'getting lucky' ;-)

One of digital's strengths may also be one of its weaknesses. Given how easy it is to delete 'goofs,' it possible to lose some decent photos that just needed a little time to grow on you. For that reason, I plan on keeping just about everything and buning to CD. Certainly not everything is fit for web publication, but what's the harm in saving it on $0.02 of recordable optical media?

In my brief experimentation, one thing I've found that's actually tougher with the digital camera is that it's much less forgiving about white balance than film is. Even on the 'auto' setting, certain lighting looks like crap. You really have to stop to think and either use the presets for the lighting at hand, or set up a custom white-balance for your scene. Look at some of the pics I took last night and I think you'll see examples of that. But again, instant review to the rescue.

A Yellow Example

As for photo storage, I got a 512MB SanDisk UltraII. There were a few reasons I decided on a 512MB card instead of a 1GB, and I'm happy I did. As it was, it took about 14 minutes to download a full card to my laptop - granted, that was via USB1.1, not 2.0. The other advantage to the smaller size is that once I fill up the card, I can just dump the whole thing to a CD without having to split things up into smaller chunks.

Long exposure while zooming in (or out, I forget).

Photo capacity depends on a few things, of course, but with an empty card, my camera tells me that my 512MB card can hold 66 RAW files, 154 Large-Fine .jpgs stepping all the way up to 511 Small-compressed .jpgs. Note that in the case of the D300, "small" isn't really small and still just about fills my laptop screen. At the RAW or Large settings, your images will hold data you had no clue was there, like license plate numbers, memos on your desk, maybe even your shirt size if you leave a tag sticking out.

The RAW mode saves all the data off the CMOS sensor to be processed later (in software). It's the equavalent of a film negative. From it, you can do a whole lot more image tweaking than you can with the output jpegs. Obviously you pay for that freedom with space and time. My plan is to only shoot in RAW mode if I'm in an 'artistic' mood. Otherwise, either Large-fine or small-fine.

Yes, that arm grows out of my head.

One 'complaint' I've read a lot about the Dig. Rebel (as opposed to the 10D or now 20D) is that with its composite body, it's too light feeling. Next to my film Canon, this thing is a tank. Not unbearably heavy, but solid feeling. I think the 'lightness' is more of an issue with REALLY big telephoto lenses and a resultant sense of imbalance. Some combat this by adding a 2-battery grip. I see it as a nit pick just to find something to bitch about on a great camera.

I shot over 500 pictures yesterday/last night. Me lovie.