Canon 7D, EOS Flashes, Lenses, Canon, Canon 60D, Nikon

400mm f/2.8 vs. Sandhill Crane Colt

Young Sandhill Cranes are called colts, just like the horses. Here's a photo of a 9 month old Sandhill Crane Colt taken at Reifel Bird Sanctuary.

400mm f/2.8 vs Sandhill Crane The problems with having a 400mm f/2.8. The Sandhill Crane Colt (baby) is much too close for using such a big fixed lens. Actually he could have used a couple of tube extensions for the close focusing. The problem is to focus on what? An eye or the end of the beak?The fixed lens proponents say:

400mm f/2.8 vs. Sandhill Crane Colt   click on image for gallery

Here's the problem with having a 400mm f/2.8. The Sandhill Crane Colt (the baby) is much too close for using such a big fixed lens. Actually he could have used a couple of tube extensions for the close focusing. The problem is to focus on what? An eye or the end of the beak?

Canon 7D: Selecting the AF Point Without Using the AF Point Selection Button

You can select the AF Point with the Joystick/Multi-Controller without first pressing the AF point selection/Magnify button. This applies to:

  • Single-Point AF
  • Spot AF
  • Zone AF

But you first need to configure the camera:

  1. You need to assign the Joystick/Multi-Controller to the AF Selection button with the Menu > Custom Function (2nd icon from the right) > C.Fn IV: Operation/Others > 1 Custom Controls (p 217 of the manual) > Assign the multi-controller to the AF point direct selection (p 220 of the manual).

    You need to do this only once.

Canon: 40 Megapixels

Here's a 41 megapixels photo:

North Vancouver: Edgemont Village North Vancouver: Edgemont Village north-van-edgemont-20120317-pano01.jpg — ©2012 Syv Ritch -- foto-biz.com: http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

Canon: 40 Megapixels, Edgemont Village — North Vancouver, BC, Canada

Here is the screen capture of the photograph size:

Canon: 7D: Flash Exposure Lock

Canon 580 EX II flash/speedlight

Canon has this wonderful thing for flash, it's the E-TTL II system. With E-TTL II, you can control the exposure and the flash exposure separately. Basically, it sends a pre-flash to read the exposure across the 63 metering zones for what's dark (interpreted as background) and what's bright (interpreted as foreground). The problem is that I was looking to set the exposure and to lock that flash exposure for the rest of the photos.

The problem is where is the Flash Exposure Lock (FE Lock) button? I can't see it on the flash. I can't see it in the Canon 7D's menu. And of course, I didn't have any of the manuals with me.

Canon 7D: AE Lock

There are 2 uses for the Auto-Exposure AE lock:

  1. When you want to have the area of focus to be different from the area metered for the exposure.

Canon: The new 5DMk3

Canon 5DMk3 with 24-105L f/4 lens

2-Mar-2012 came and Canon revealed their latest camera, the 5DMk3, the successor to the 5DMk2. Today's the 5th of March, very few people have actually touched it, but like everybody else that has seen the web photos. This is not a review but I will give my opinion on what I consider important…

Is My Flash Strong Enough?

Do you remember when you were in high school? When I was in high school, we had to study physics. We had to study light, waves… For the people that either didn't have to study physics or have forgotten it:

The light coming from a flash bounces like billiard balls. This means that light that bounces against a reflecting surface will bounce back with the same angle, i.e.

I Really Like This Older Lady Photographer

I really like this older lady photographer. She is Japanese. She uses a Canon 400D, it's a 10 megapixels Rebel XTi if I'm not mistaken, with a Canon 100-400mm f/4-5.6 L lens. I like her because she is fearless. She must be in late 60s, early 70s. She came all the way to Canada from Japan as part of some tour.

I really like this older lady photographer I really like this older lady photographer. She is Japanese. She uses a Canon 400D, that's a 10 megapixels Rebel XTi if I'm not mistaken, with a Canon 100-400mm f/4-5.6 L lens. I like her because she is fearless. She must be in late 60s, early 70s. She came all the way to Canada from Japan as part of some tour.Notice her left arm, she supports the 100-400mm lens and carries a fully loaded hand bag at the same time.I'm sure that I won't like her photos. I will even like a lot less the tall girl's photos. One does and held and the other one has a great tripod fully extended.The old lady is around 5ft to 5ft1 (around 1½ meter) and the younger girl is around 5ft6, 5ft7 (around 1.7m.) Take a look at my perspective. Take a look at their perspective. I'm on one knee. My right knee is on the ground and my left knee half bent. Rocks, gravel… My secret, I wear a carpenter kneepad on my right knee. I bought it for less than half price at Home Depot. Somebody stole the other kneepad and they were left with half of the set.Sometimes, it's OK to take photos from higher up if you are going after some special effect. Most of the times it doesn't work, they look squashed.BTW, take a look at the photo tour leader in the background, just to her right, sitting on the bench. Boredom… reifel-20120211-2606.jpg — ©2012 Syv Ritch -- foto-biz.com: http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

I really like this older lady photographer   click on image for gallery

Look at her left arm, she supports the 100-400mm lens and carries a fully loaded handbag at the same time.

Canon: Battery Life

Canon created the LP-E6 battery for the Canon 5DMk2. It's an expensive battery, $100+ in Canada. Canon said that it's expensive because it has its own CPU. Many people have speculated that it's a strategy to "kill" the "generic" batteries. Actually it's not just the CPU but also the significant higher capacity. The benefit of the LP-E6 is the much longer battery life. In the "good old" days, it was very common for a battery to last between 300 to 500 photos.

Canon claims that the LP-E6 last approximately 1,000 photos at 23°C/73°F without the popup flash and 900 photos with a 50% popup flash use.

Here's a poor photo of the battery info on my Canon 7D. It had to be, I was in the field, and I had to use somebody's else point and shoot. My other camera had a long tele without any close focus. But it's good enough to see the battery status:

Canon: Camera Error Codes

Before we go into the error codes with the Canon Cameras, you need to realize that all the new digital cameras from the cheapest point and shoot to the most expensive Hasselblad are not cameras but computers with a lens at the front, a screen at the back and various buttons instead of a keyboard. They all have a CPU, a screen, memory and a drive (usually some flash) to store the photos.

Canon like most camera manufacturers have not been very helpful in figuring out what are the problems with the cameras. Here's the list of what I figured out:

Syndicate content