This collection of photos is from the last couple of weeks. The trend seems to be a short jacket, tight jeans and leather boots.
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Photo 1 is blurry because the subject was approaching the camera which wasn't set to track focus in AI Servo mode. Photos 2 and 3 were taken at 105mm from across the street. Photos 1 and 3 are cropped.
The first thing you notice when you pick up the camera, is the weight— it's a comparably heavy camera which gets even heavier when you add a lens (so the camera strap is important in avoiding fatigue when carrying it). The second thing you notice is the rear view-screen— it is HUGE and VIVID with a purplish tint that prevents image distortion when the oil from one's face rubs-off on the screen and allows photos to be reviewed in direct sunlight. The camera also has a backlit monochrome LCD on the top-right of the body, with buttons and a scroll wheel for quickly changing various settings. If the button functions are memorized, the settings can be changed without looking away from the viewfinder, which displays the settings on a status bar along the bottom.
One of the first adjustments I had to make when using this camera, was becoming accustomed to the weight— my right hand and wrist began to hurt after shooting for a few minutes. I only noticed this after I moved my hand away from the shutter button. Having become accustomed to continuously holding my lightweight S60 pocket camera in my right hand with my index finger extended over the shutter button, I instinctively began doing the same with the 50D. Unfortunately, the 50D weighs more than a 2 lbs. and has a taller body, so it puts quite a strain on the wrist and hand. I had to keep reminding myself to hold the camera, with my left hand cradling the lens, relax my right hand and index finger and only use it when I need to compose and shoot. After a couple of months, I became used to this technique.
Child's portrait at f/1.4; the reason for buying the camera and lens.
The accompanying photographs to Gary Voth's article, The Forgotten Lens, convinced me to choose a 50mm prime lens over the multi-function lens that Canon ships when the camera is purchased as a kit. They are exactly the kinds of photographs I would be taking.
The lens focuses fast enough to capture kids moving around (but not fast enough if they're running around). The AI Servo mode accurately tracks focus of an initially stationary object, which subsequently begins moving within the frame. The lens also takes fantastic head and shoulders daytime indoor portraits with no flash (aperture set to an f-stop less than 2 at ISO 100). Evenings require the ISO bumped up past 1000.
It should be noted that I did sometimes get out-of-focus shots in broad daylight, even though the camera reported focus lock. I don't know if it's my shooting, the camera or the lens. It's easy for a novice to blame the equipment, so I shall refrain from doing so.
In terms of sharpness, the following (taken from the Digital Picture review) should be noted:
Although it is soft wide open, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM Lens is sharp at f/2 and very sharp when stopped down to f/2.8 or narrower. Corners are soft until f/2 for 1.6x FOVCF bodies and f/2.8 on full frame bodies...[I have also found that in bright daylight, the lens exposes 1/3 stop higher than I feel necessary].
It is precisely the softness of this lens, wide open, that makes this lens ideal for indoor portraits of children. At f/1.4 this lens also takes great macro shots with beautiful bokeh. It can be used at the minimum focal distance of about 1 foot to photograph plants, flowers and products.
I found the 50mm lens with the 50D body rather limiting for landscape photography and large (5+ people) group shots, requiring me to stand quite further back than I am used to with my Canon S60. This is due to the 1.6x sensor/lens crop-factor which makes my 50mm lens look like a 80mm (50mm x 1.6) lens. My next purchase will likely be a wide-angle lens.Update: I purchased a 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens (see below), as Canon's wide-angle lens offerings did not appeal to me as they lacked USM and full-time manual focusing.
I bought the Canon 24-105mm online from Vistek on Feb. 10, the order was processed on the 11th and it was delivered on the 12th. I began photographing with it on the Friday, the 13th.
I would definitely recommend this lens as an general outdoor walk-about lens, which gives an equivalent 38-168mm lens on the 50D body. I have only photographed with this lens in an urban setting so I can recommend it for street photography and for urban landscapes. Because of the crop-factor, whatever field-of-view you lose on the wide end (38mm), you gain in the zoom end (168mm).
It is also a good lens for indoor photography near windows and wherever there is plenty of light. It focuses fast and accurately. I have yet to take a blurry, out-of-focus photograph with this lens (unlike the 50/1.4).
A more detailed review will appear later.
My camera bag (photographed with a Canon S30).
I would strongly recommend purchasing a camera bag for this camera. It's handy for carrying all the accessories, cables and extra lenses. My Canon branded Tamrac bag, which came bundled with the camera, included an extra battery and a battery grip, as a sales promotion. The bag has lots of pockets and compartments and is well padded.
I had a difficult time configuring the inside of the camera bag, that I received with the camera, using the velcro partitions. The bag should have come with some diagrams showing suggested configurations— for example, I wanted to know if the camera could be safely stowed lens-down, rather than horizontally.
After a discussion on IRC, I found that the camera could be safely carried lens-down in the bag. This was fortunate because after I bought the 24-105mm lens, I wasn't able to configure the bag with the camera stowed horizontally and also have the 50mm not roll around when the camera was out of the bag. Once I configured the camera to stow vertically, it was much better.
Shutter priority 1/640s, f/1.4, stabilized on railing.
Here is a list of settings I have customized (from the factory defaults):
In general, I would say this camera has a poor user interface— in situations where a single button would have sufficed, it always requires an additional button press.
This is a (growing) list of things about the camera's interface that I expected to work in certain way, or things that make me wonder why they are a certain way (perhaps later, as I learn the camera, I will understand why) and things that generally bother me when I interact with the 50D:
Live View allows the rear LCD to be used as a viewfinder; the camera achieves this by moving the mirror up (Mirror Lock-Up) and exposing the CCD sensor to the scene continuously. A Rule-of-Thirds grid can be overlaid on the screen to help composition, as can a histogram light-meter which is updated in real-time.
When you press the shutter button and expect the camera to auto-focus, nothing happens. You have to use the dedicated auto-focus button and one of a possible three focus methods. The first one, which is fastest, is a cheat, the mirror drops blanking the LiveView and the camera performs the auto-focus as if you were using the view-finder, and then displays the image again when focussing is complete— this is annoying to say the least. The second method, uses phase-change to detect focus, while keeping the image live but it takes a long time as the camera incrementally adjusts the focus. The third method uses face detection technology and is quite fast but is only useful when photographing people.
I find it useful and faster to use AF through the viewfinder, then switch to Live View and manually adjust the lens at 10x magnification before shooting. I avoid Live View if at all possible; it's one of the few dissappointments of this camera. Since it wasn't a requirement when purchasing the camera, it can be safely ignored without affecting the final score of the camera.
I love this camera and 50mm lens combination for the amazing indoor daylight portraits it takes at f/1.4 with very pleasing bokeh. It takes really clean (without noticeable sensor-noise) night photographs at 400 ISO and a stabilized (against a lamp-post, or on a tripod) camera. At 1600 ISO, hand-held shots can be taken at 1/100s+ speeds at wide apertures and then downsampled to 11MP to reduce noise (if necessary).
It's easy to take great photos in good light in full auto mode with this camera; the auto white-balance (AWB) is correct most of the time (setting the white-balance to Flourescent manually when shooting compact flourescents seem gives a yellow tinge to the photo— the Tungesten setting gives a better white balance) and the auto ISO selection is reasonable most of the time. As the saying goes— it's not the camera that takes the picture, it's the photographer— so the photographer's skill in setting the correct aperture and exposure are required when photographing in less than ideal conditions— low-light or night-time photography where the camera always compensates by popping-up the flash to deliver properly exposed (viewable) photos rather than pleasingly exposed ones.
Due to the sensor crop-factor, the focal length of all lenses increase by 1.6x— so a 50mm lens acts like an 80mm lens which does not make it as good a walk-around lens as it would be on a full-frame camera like the 5D or the 1D. I would not recommend the default kit-lens which is bundled with the camera and would suggest buying the body alone and depending on your budget, either the low-end 50mm or the mid-range f/1.4, as your starter lens. (This review looks at the three Canon 50mm lenses, el-cheapo, mid-range and high-end.)
Night photography at 1600 ISO, f/2.2 at 1/125s handheld.
There are two areas where this camera can be improved. The first area is the poor design of the user interface. The most egregious example of poor design is the requirement of having to press the review button before pressing the zoom button, if one wants to zoom into a photograph to check the focus, right after taking the photograph. It is clear from this that the Canon engineers are not avid photographers. The second area that could stand improvement, is the implementation of auto-focus in LiveView mode. The current methods of auto-focusing in Live View mode seem like a technological stop-gap measure rather than the future of photography. One cannot just half-press the shutter button and have the camera focus when using Live View mode; there is a dedicated Auto-Focus button and a choice of three different methods to choose from. It's usually faster to manually focus the camera (though face-detection focusing is pretty accurate and fast) and then switch to Live View in 10x mode to tweak the final focus.
In general, despite some minor disappointments, this is a superb camera when paired with a good lens.
My guess is that Canon cameras were used to photograph the 2008 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.
Note that the site is in Russian, but that doesn't really matter as the subject matter is universal.
Superb black and white photography and portraits of celebrities (including Einstein) by Ernst Haas.
His behind-the-scenes photographs on the set of The Misfits are the last memorials to Marilyn Monroe's career.
Other than the first photograph in the series, I can't say I was impressed with his photographs of Audrey Hepburn's wedding; the photos have a distant quality, rather than an intimate quality to them.
His colour photography is breathtaking in framing (see "Locksmith's Sign" in the New York series), composition and contrasts— he makes photography look so easy.
The Moon. Shutter Priority 1/640s, f/1.4 [1 of 15]
A few weeks ago, just before bed, I happened to take a look outside my window, just before getting into bed when I noticed that the sky was clear and the moon was out— I just had to take some pictures.
Before getting dressed, I checked my journal entry where I recorded the camera settings for the last lunar eclipse I had photographed. I then got dressed and hopped out onto the balcony with my 50D and began photographing the moon. I leaned the camera on the balcony railing for stability, but because of the distance and my 50mm lens, even the slightest vibration like the shutter clicking added jitter to the photograph.
As I was coming back in, I bumped the base of the camera on the sliding door quite severely (if it had been a piece of wood, it would have nicked the wood). Once inside, I carefully checked the body of camera for a dent or a paint bruise— nothing, not even a scratch— phew!.
Update Wed Dec 03 15:54:47 2008: I was re-reading the manual last night and I realize I should have changed the metering mode from Evaluative to Center-Weighted as the subject I am photographing is in the center, and surrounded by blackness.
Update Sat Dec 06 20:17:04 2008: I was taking some night photographs of the freshly fallen snow and playing with the metering modes, I found that Partial Metering produced better exposed photographs (at -2/3 EV).