Photography
It’s all about the glass. It matters little how basic your camera is - as long as it exposes the image correctly it will take great pictures provided you put a good lens on it.
Not for nothing do you see press and sports photographers carrying huge lenses around with them. Rest assured that if they were able to get the shots they needed with the plastic kit lens that comes with a new camera, they wouldn’t bother carrying all that heavy glass around. But the fact is, you can’t!
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The picture to the right shows just how many different lenses there are to choose from in the Canon EF (autofocus) range. Some of those lenses are cheaper ‘consumer’ lenses but those big white lenses and all those with the red ring arond the front of the barrel are the ‘L’ series professional lenses. These are the lenses of choice for sports, news and fashion photographers around the world - some very expensive glass! Being a Canon man myself I have chosen to highlight the Canon offerings here - Nikon have a similarly impressive collection of lenses of their own. It may come as a surprise to hear that cameras are small beer compared to what the manufacturers make in lens sales - the most expensive Canon lens sells for around £10,000! |
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The dazzling array of Canon lenses |
There was a time, not all that long ago, when I could be found hauling around a bag full of pretty expensive Canon lenses. I was very into aviation photography, very much as an amateur photographer who sold a few pictures as opposed to a pro or semi-pro. It was a hobby and it was nice to make a bit of money every now & then if one of my shots was chosen for a magazine or website (the most common kind of sales).
You can view a selection of my aviation pictures on the Aviation gallery page. I look back on them now with some pride because they all have a tale to tell and weren’t always easy to come by. I travelled many miles, spent many hours and got sunburned, frozen and sodden more than once to get those shots!
Canon EOS 350D (Rebel XT in the US) |
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I carried around a pretty standard collection of glass, based on what friends in the hobby used, comprising a Canon 100-400mm F4-5.6 IS L, a Canon 70-200mm F4 L, a Canon 17-40mm F4 L and a Canon 50mm F1.8 Mk II lens. All of these are high quality lenses resulting in excellent images. The 50mm F1.8 lens isn’t one of the pro series L lenses but is still capable of excellent results due to it’s fixed focal length and simple construction. It is small, light and has a good bokeh when used at wider apertures making it ideal for general purpose photography. By way of cameras I have used three different Canon digital SLR bodies over the years. I started in 2002 with a Canon D60 which I purchased new soon after they were released. This was the 2nd digital SLR from Canon following on from the D30 released in 2000. I’d held off buying the D30 preferring to wait until the 6 megapixel D60 was available – this did have it’s downside though in so far as the D60 produced a significantly darker image out of the camera than the D30 requiring more post processing - D30 images were brighter and had more natural colours requiring less post processing. |
I used the D60 for about 3 years before trading it in and buying a used Canon 10D (which had been released in 2003) which was another 6 megapixel body but with improved autofocus and a new sensor giving the kind of brighter, natural colours previously available in the D30. This was a significant improvement over the D60 body and I used that camera until September 2005 when I sold it and got a new Canon 350D which is an 8 megapixel body with many improvements over the older 10D in a smaller lighter body.
I still have my 350D (which is actually the US version branded as a ‘Rebel XT’) which I continue to use as my day to day camera despite no longer pursuing the aviation photography hobby and having sold all the lenses mentioned above in 2006 to fund the resurrection of my amateur radio hobby.
Until recently I used just two simple low cost lenses - the Canon 50mm f1.8 (a great value for money little lens) and a Canon 18-55mm kit lens (which I picked up for a bargain price on eBay). Although I don’t foresee a need to upgrade the 350D just yet, it’s still a great little camera, and the 50mm f1.8 lens is, as expected, doing a great job, the 18-55mm zoom lens wasn’t giving the image quality I expect and was retired (i.e. sold) to fund the purchase of a replacement in the form of the more recent Canon 18-55mm IS (image stabilised) lens. This is another relatively cheap lens (made largely of plastic) but it receives widespread praise as a budget lens producing image quality usually only seen in much more expensive offerings.