August 2009

After a wet July August was fine - very warm and mostly dry. Beside my "monthly" business trip to Hungary we spent a long weekend in the South of Austria. We swam in a warm lake ( Ossiacher See ) and watched a very good concert ( Kraah Trio - a swiss vocal artist / world music ). We also visited our friends in their new house ( POM May 2009 ) but regarding photography August was rather slow till August 21st. On August 21st I got a new camera! Again! And it is not a full frame! What happend?

We decided to go to Western Canada for a 2 weeks vacation in September. I promised myself to don´t get a DLSR with a cropped body again except if I will go to Alaska or Canada and plan to shoot wildlife there. I decided to get the Canon 500D which is known as "Rebel" in the US. It is the smallest camera Canon sells at the moment but is it just a toy? Of course not! It is a very fine camera.

But why did I buy the entry level camera instead of a faster XXD - line. There are 2 reasons: first: Canon´s 50D is a very good camera but it is not impressive. It is still behind Nikon´s D300. There will be a new Canon anounced tomorrow. The Canon 7D. On paper this camera truly looks impressive but it will not be available within the next couple of days so it comes too late for my trip. And my second reason is: Money! I´m not willing to spend a lot of money on photo gear now. I have everthing I need and while it is not perfect regarding wildlife it is still as good as the stuff I had when I visited Canada back in 2001.

This was the last vacation where I shot slide film. In 2002 in Scotland I shot digital with my Nikon D1. But in 2001 I had a Nikon F100 with a AF-D 4/300ED as my longest lens. Now I have the 500D with a 70-200/4IS + 1.4TC which results in a 450mm crop. Even with the 5D I would have the same "range" as in 2001 except that I´m able to use higher ISOs as a bonus. In 2001 I shot with a 100ASA slide film. But of course Canon´s 300/4IS would be a very nice lens. A faster camera would be also great but not this time.

This time we will be around Vancouver and we will not visit the Rocky Mountains and the famous Banff and Jasper National Parks. That´s why I think we will see less wildlife anyway.

When I will visiting Katmai and Denali in Alaska or the Falkland Islands "someday" I´m sure that I will have a real telelens and a fast camera ( maybe the Canon 7D ) with me.

But now back to today. I´m very impressed by the Canon 500D. Image quality is excellent, the camera handles very well ( which was really a surprise for me ) and it is very small and light. With the Kit lens attached it is almost like a bridge or superzoom camera. It´s not heavier than a medium lens like the 17-40L which is great.

I had two extended shootings with the 500D so far. First was a trip to the Zoo to test my "Canada set up". Camera + 70-200IS + 1.4TC. I always prefer to test new equipment in real life instead of inhouse shots or brick walls. A Zoo is a good option to try this combo in the field. Result: I´m impressed: I shot wide open ( f5.6 ) all the time an the images were sharp, contrasty and colors were very nice. AF was fast and did not hunt when the focus limitter was set to 3m minimum distance.

The second shooting was during a mountain bike trip. I always had these pictures in mind but they are not easy to take. The same images taken on a road bike riding down on smooth tarmac is easy. Just set your camera to 1/30s and you got a nicely blurred road that really gives you the impression of speed and movement even if you are doing just 20km per hour. Do the same on your mountainbike on a rough trail and you get - well you get a shot where everything is totally blurred. Not just the road but everthing. But I wanted the handlebars to appear sharp in the image. I tried various speeds and ended up using shutter speeds inbetween 1/80s and 1/125s. The problem was: With such short shutterspeeds you have to ride fast to get a blurred road. On the first image you can see that I´m doing 56km/h on a bumpy road steering with just one hand and braking only with the front brakes. Nice! I also used AUTO-ISO and let the camera adjust the ISO level according to the light level. In the first shot 500ASA was needed for the last one 100ASA was good enough. Next time when I will go biking with my friends I will take the 500D with me to take some nice action shots.

setting main shot: Canon 500D + 70-200/4IS + 1.4TC, A-Mode, 1/125s@f5.6 and 320ASA ( Auto - ISO )

setting bike shots: Canon 500D + Kit lens, T-Mode, 1/80s@f4-5.6 and 500ASA - 100ASA ( depending on the light )