Night Shoot

Did some night photography on the walk back home. Tried full auto (with flash) and Creative Assist mode (surpressed flash and reduced exposure). I would have to praise the CA mode for allowing those learning to use the camera, to take great pictures. Photos forthcoming. I didn't take as many photos as I would have liked as I wasn't dressed for standing around in 10°C weather.

Found another usability irritant: the CA mode settings reset after photos are reviewed or if the camera is switched to another mode.

This afternoon, I took a 15MP photograph of a student, who was standing in the Atrium, from about 70 feet away; it was pretty impressive that you could zoom in and see she was holding an iPod Touch or iPhone.

DP Review: 50D

David sent a link to the 50D review. Reading it was helpful as an supplement to the dry user manual.

I noticed that the charger that I got with the body-only kit looks different than the one pictured in the review. I still don't know what the AF-ON button ("The AF-ON button allows you to trigger auto focus independently of the shutter release 'half-press'.") is supposed to do— pressing it seems to focus the lens far and then close in small steps— more reading required. Page 10 of the review has a movie that shows AF operating in LiveView mode. Perhaps it's not working for me because I always have the camera handheld rather than mounted on a tripod or stabilized. Page 17 has an interesting comparison of the sensor noise levels of the various cameras; the Nikon D300 is unexpectedly impressive at ISO1600.

Update Sat Nov 08 12:55:45 2008: After re-reading the LiveView chapter, I have a better understanding of the auto-focus in LiveView mode now and it does work (for some values of "work").

Canon 50D Irritants

A list of things that I expect to work a 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 about the 50d:

• No auto-focus with shutter button in LiveView mode (if a point-and-shoot can do it...)
• Blinking numbers or symbols (the shutter speed blinks, the aperture value blinks, a circle blinks when corresponding limits are reached; this is the 21st century: I want a message in English telling me what's wrong and I want it projected in the eye-piece and I want errors coloured red)
• Multiple ways of setting the same thing; the top-deck status LCD (for backwards compatibility to keep the old-timers happy, I suppose) and the rear status/Quick Control LCD menu (I have re-considered this irritant and accept that the top LCD is useful)
• The auto-focus points in the view-finder are difficult to see when shooting in low light
• the CA mode settings reset after photos are reviewed or if the camera is switched to another mode (Tue Nov 04 23:26:17 2008)
• A photo can be automatically reviewed (for a customizable period) after each shot; I would like to zoom-in to the picture being reviewed without having to press Review and explicitly entering review mode (Sat Nov 15 14:25:53 2008)
• With the rear LCD on, when you switch to a different exposure mode; e.g. from Shutter Priority to Aperture Priority, the LCD shuts off. In the dark, it's difficult to read the top dial, so the LCD is handy to see what mode you're shooting in. But I have to keep turning the LCD on every time I switch modes. (Sun Dec 21 12:53:27 2008)
• This is more of a wish— backlit buttons so I can see what I'm pressing in the dark given how much pressing Canon engineers expect me to do. A backlit exposure-setting top-dial would be nice too. Wed Dec 31 22:23:10 2008