17 April 2008
Yesterday I was in a shooting mood and bought some interesting vegetables and fruit to shoot when I was at Hemköp.
I set up a provisional studio
on one of my chairs. I just used a large sheet of white paper that I happened to find in a photo frame. For lighting I used my desk light and a second smaller light.
I hunted down the correct exposure to make the paper only just overexpose in the brightest corner, and then shot in manual mode.
I used my Sigma 17-70mm, Canon 50mm and Canon 70-300mm lenses. I liked the results best from the 50mm, so I ended up sticking with that lens most of the time. (Except for the real close-ups where I used the 70-300mm + a close-up lens.) And most of the time I had the 50mm set at f/2.8 which seems to be this lenses sweet spot
.
If you want to see more of the shots I've put my favourites in a set at Flickr.
Labels: 30D, canon, photography, Sigma
18 March 2008
Sigma just announced the new Sigma 50mm 1:1.4 EX. Since I'm a bit disappointed with the performance of my Canon EF 50mm f/1.4, this might be an interesting alternative if the price is right. (I find the Canon 50mm 1.4 is only usably sharp from about f/2.2.)
Edit: Just realized I published a quick sharpness test of the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 last year.
Labels: 30D, lenses, photography, Sigma
02 June 2007
I've sort-of been wanting a really wide angle lens for a while. You can do so many cool things with them, and they're actually quite useful as well. For instance, you can easily make really goofy portraits:
The widest lens I've had before was 17 mm, so going down to 10 mm makes quite a difference. Especially in tight spaces and for landscapes. So, having had what felt like my first ever real pay check a few days ago, I ordered a Sigma 10-20mm 1:4-5.6 (and a UV filter to go in front of it). It arrived yesterday. Included was a great carrying pouch and a lens hood.
[@Tommy: Den finns med Nikonfattning också.]
After work and dinner I went out and played with it for four hours :) in town.
First I headed for the historic parts of the town. Basically a large collection of 17th century smithies, now functioning as a tourist attraction with restaurants, etc.
This bell tower worked quite well from below I thought. Sadly you can't actually make out the bell here:
Close to the old smithies I found what looked like a half deserted factory building.
Just as I was going to leave, I saw this bracelet haning on a hinge on the fence:
The last three photos were taken with my old 75-300mm lens.
Then I headed back home, but got stuck at the church which looked pretty good against the blue sky.
There were plenty of cool cars rolling around, so I had a go at improving my panning skills. Not sure what the first one is though... some kind of Chevy perhaps?
By now it was so dark I decided to go back into town to have a shot at some lit-up fountains that I pass every day going to work.
Going there, the view of the river was pleasing to the eye. I was lucky enough to get a horde of jackdaws in the shot.
And a last shot of the church from across the river before I went home. This time I actually did go home.
I'm getting close to 10,000 photos now. My camera has made 9949 exposures, and out of those I've kept 3604, or 36%. Sadly I haven't printed very many, but I'm planning on making a few enlargements soon to put up on my bare walls.
Labels: 30D, canon, Eskilstuna, lenses, photography, Sigma
04 June 2006
The full title of this should have been Canon EF 28-90mm 1:4-5.6 vs. Sigma AF 17-70mm 1:2.8-4.5 at ~35 mm
, but it got rather long.
I've just done a small series of shots at f/4, 5.6 and 8 with the Canon and the Sigma, at 35 mm focal length.
As you'll see, this test displays more than anything why it's worth spending some more money on getting a sturdy tripod. Even though I didn't intentionally change the camera's position, it has quite obviously moved between the shots.
Below are 100% center crops. The Canon 28-90 is on the left, the Sigma 17-70 is on the right. Oh, and I should say that the Sigma ended up at 36 mm, and the Canon at 35 mm. First up, f/4:
Then we have f/5.6:
Finally, f/8:
Edit: I just realized that I forgot to write some kind of conclusion. The Sigma is a lot sharper at f/4, but it doesn't get much sharper at f/5.6 and f/8. The Canon is, in comparison, pretty soft
at f/4, but improves significantly to f/8. At f/8 the main difference between the two seems to be the colour. The Sigma looks slightly more saturated. I did have the camera WB set to Cloudy
, so the difference shouldn't be because of the AWB treating the photos differently.
Labels: 30D, canon, lenses, photography, Sigma
03 June 2006
Well, I got my 30D on Monday. (Finally!) I ordered it basically a month ago. Oh boy is this a nice camera... I've had the lens since the 16 May, but obviously haven't been able to use it properly until now.
Thought I'd give you a little review of it here. If you're wondering, I'm not having second thoughts about my purchase. I just thought it would be wrong to title this First Thoughts
, since I've had it for about a week now :-) All the same, it won't be a complete review – there are plenty of those out there for you already. I'll just comment on a few different aspects of the camera.
The size of the grip.
This is the main reason I got the 30D instead of the 350D. I'm not so bothered about the 5 frames per second, although it is nice at times. Having tried the 350D with a ~400 gram lens and a flash attached, I am convinced I made the right choice. For me, the 350D was far to small to feel comfortable. I got the feeling I was only holding it with my fingertips.
I actually ordered the vertical grip (BG-E2) as well, but canceled it when I read that it wasn't very high quality, and sometimes could cause power-cuts. I would definitely like the vertical grip for that last bit of hand to fit onto the camera in landscape orientation, and obviously not having to hold your arm up for verticals would be nice. However, having a battery grip on when using a tripod is not optimal in my experience, which is half the reason I decided to skip the BG-E2.
The 2.5-inch display
This, obviously, is very nice to have. Some have complained about the brightness not being good enough for outdoor use. I agree that the default (middle) brightness setting is a bit low for daylight use, but you just need to up it two notches for it to be fine. However, remember to turn it down again, or your pictures will look overexposed when you review your photos in less light.
The viewfinder
Some mean that the viewfinder of the 20D and 30D is on the small side. I feel it's just right, probably mainly because of me wearing glasses. With it not being huge, I can easily see all of it at the same time. If it were any bigger I would have to keep moving my eye in relation to the camera to see the edges of the frame.
The USB connection
(See the edit at the end of this post.) My largest disappointment with the 30D must be the non-functional USB-to-computer connection. The CD doesn't seem to include any so called WIA drivers for the camera, which may be why the connection keeps dying in the middle of transfers. I've given up completely on moving pictures directly from the camera, because it seems impossible to move more than a few before the camera disconnects from the computer. I've ordered a CF card reader. While some may say that I should use a card reader all the same, I feel it should at least be possible, if a little slow, to transfer pictures straight from the camera. Canon, are you listening?
The Auto White Balance
Some reviews have complained about Canon's AWB not handling tungsten light very well. My thought is that this is because they don't want to risk taking the warmth out of photos shot at dawn and dusk. I'd love to hear what you think on the subject – leave a comment if you think I'm right or wrong.
The Multi-Controller
There is a small joy-stick thing on the back of the 30D (and the 20D) which is used for moving around when reviewing photos. One of the custom functions (nr 13, set to 1) lets you use this multi-controller
for quickly selecting which AF point to use. I think this should be the default behaviour, since it is much quicker and easier than having to press the AF-point selection button first.
The Sigma 17-70mm 1:2.8-4.5 DC
Without having made any direct, scientific comparisons, this lens seems very sharp. Photozone.de have done though, and the charts show that this lens is better than the EF 17-85 IS USM in many ways, apart from the fact that it doesn't have IS of course. I'll do a comparison with my EF 28-90mm f/4-5.6 later just for the fun. I realize they will be like day and night, optically. They definitely are quality-wise anyway.
The Over-All Feeling
This is a camera I will have lots of fun using, hopefully for many days to come!
Edit: After consulting my fellow photographers in the MBP Forums, I tried reinstalling all the Canon software. If I had read the manual I would have seen a warning to not connect the camera before installing anything. I must have done just that, because it works fine now that I have reinstalled.
Labels: 30D, canon, lenses, photography, Sigma
18 April 2006
Can't stop thinking about it. The Canon EOS 30D. I got to play around with it last week-end, and ever since, I can't think of anything else.
I've been wondering whether I should get a second hand 20D instead, but I'd really like to have the spot metering of the 30D, as well as the larger screen. The 20D's 1.8 inch screen feels tiny when you've tried the 30D. Also, the direct access to the ISO setting is very useful, so I don't think I'll be getting a 350D since you have to use a menu to change the ISO there.
I've also read up on the lens tests over at Photozone. I'm a bit skeptical about Canon's EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 USM IS, since it seems to fair rather poorly. It has serious chromatic aberation, vignetting and barrel distortion. The
Sigma AF 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC macro is a much better buy, costing around 3500 SEK (€ 370) compared to the Canon's roughly 6000 SEK (€ 670). It is sharper (higher resolution) and suffers less from distortion and chromatic aberration. The vignetting is only slightly less pronounced in the Sigma. It doesn't have the Image Stabilizing that the Canon lens has, but instead it has a larger maximum aperture, by nearly a full stop. (2.8 vs. 4.0.)
Well, we'll see if this ever becomes more than just a dream... Extremely tempted right now anyway.
Labels: 30D, canon, lenses, photography, Sigma
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