Canon 60D

Canon 60D

Canon: Battery Life

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 17. February 2012 - 6:21

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

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 15. February 2012 - 6:10

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:

Canon: Pressing the Shutter and Evaluative Metering

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 29. November 2011 - 6:29

Everybody knows, by now, that there are two steps to the shutter button:

  1. Pressing the shutter half-way activates the auto-focus, if the focus is still associated to the shutter button, and sets the automatic exposure combination in Av, Tv, or P mode.
  2. Pressing completely the shutter takes the photo.

What most people do not realize is that when you are in Evaluative Metering and Single Shot AF mode, pressing the shutter half way locks the exposure for 4 seconds.

2011 Resetting The Clock to Standard Time

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 6. November 2011 - 14:33

Today is Sunday 6-Nov-2011. In Canada and the US, the first weekend after Halloween is when we go back to the “standard time.” All my computers, cell phones and telephones changed the time by themselves. My home appliances and my car do not reset the time by themselves, I had to change them manually.

But this blog is not about cars or phones… This blog is about photography. There's no camera, that I know of, that changes the clock back and forth automatically for the daylight saving time and the standard time.

Why is it important to have the clock properly set on your camera?

Quick Guide to Accurate EOS Autofocus

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 24. June 2011 - 17:47

Canon has published a PDF: The Quick Guide to Accurate EOS Autofocus. It's a 2 pager that explains how to use the Autofocus on Canon cameras. It's not just the the Canon 7D, but also applies to the 5DMk2, 1D serie… I love how they use the word accurate. But the vast majority of the focusing problems are related to the wrong understanding/usage of the autofocus.

The most surprising was the importance of the Viewfinder Diopter Adjustment.

http://www.learn.usa.canon.com/app/pdfs/quickguides/CDLC_Accurate_EOS_AF_QuickGuide.pdf

Canon: White Balance

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 12. April 2011 - 20:04

How do you set the white balance? AWB, the automatic white balance, sunny, cloudy, or flash… The AWB mode will let the computer (oops the camera) do a quick analysis and decide.

The purpose of the white balance is to find the temperature of the light, so what looks white to the eyes will be white in the photo.

Now here's the problem: Do you care? Should you care? “I shoot raw, why should I care?”

My answer is: “That depends!” Talk about waffling, but it's true, that depends.

  1. Raw outdoor: who cares.

Canon: 60D Trash?

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 2. March 2011 - 19:16

This morning, I was sitting at the coffee place, reading a book. This guy walks in, looks at me, and starts ranting and raving like a maniac:

That 60D, it's a piece of shit, I should have never listened to you!

Eeks? What's happening? Who's that turkey? What did I do? What did he do? I looked at the guy puzzled. He said:

You recommended to buy the 60D and it's a piece of shit!

Wait, what! I don't know the guy, he knows that I'm a photographer. I don't have a 60D, I've touched one, I've even tried one for an hour or so, but that's it.

Canon: My Security Blanket Check List

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 9. February 2011 - 6:33

There are two type of 10 years experience:

* 10 times 1 year experience and
* 1 time 10 years experience

You want to work with the latter…

─ Dan Sanderson

I have lot of experience. The question is what's experience? Experience is learning from my mistakes so I don't make them again. Or

Bang your head on the keyboard. When it's painful enough, you'll remember your mistake.

— Syv Ritch

I've learned that most of my mistakes came from a change that I forgot about and realize it too late.

Image Stabilization and Tripods

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 1. February 2011 - 21:55

In the “good old days”, the advice for the Image Stabilization was to turn it off whenever the camera was mounted on a tripod. The gyroscope of the IS would keep on spinning and cause movement.

The new Image Stabilization from Canon, Nikon, or Sigma have significantly improved. The new stabilization system have a much better effectiveness.

Canon 7D: sRGB vs. Adobe RGB (1998) Color Space

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 26. January 2011 - 6:21

The Canon 7D like all the other “pro” cameras supports both the sRGB and the Adobe RGB (1998) color space. I don't know of any camera including medium format that supports the ProPhoto RGB color space.

  • sRGB is the smallest color space. It includes the least amount of colors.
  • ProPhoto RGB is the largest color space. It includes the most colors.
  • Abobe 1998 RBG is “the” in between.

Isn't it, just like Goldilocks and the 3 bears? Not too big, not too small, just right?

Turns out that NO.

1.

2010 Resetting The Clock to Standard Time

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 7. November 2010 - 10:47

Today's Sunday 7-Nov-2010. In Canada and the US, it's when we go back to the standard time. All of my computers, cell phones and telephones changed the time by themselves. My stove, my microwave oven and my car didn't, I had to change them manually.

But this isn't blog isn't about the cars, telephones… It's about photography. There's no camera, that I know of, that changes the clock back and forth automatically for the daylight saving time and the standard time.

Why is it important to set the clock properly on your camera?

Canon: How To Charge The Battery

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 19. October 2010 - 18:16

The Canon LP-E6 batteries for the Canon 5DMk2, the 60D and the 7D are amazing! The LP-E6 seems to be improving with age. Saturday, the battery was down to 16%. Time to change it. I did 2168 photos and the battery was down to 16%. Could it have lasted to 2500 photos? Possible. I couldn't take a photo of the LCD with the number of shots because it was the camera with the lens that had the fairly close focus.

White Balance

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 2. October 2010 - 16:45

I do have a mean streak. Most of the times, it's well hidden, but it comes out when some people really rub me the wrong way, especially the "holier than thou" people. That's when my mean streak comes out.

One of the great benefit of switching from film to digital is that we don't have to deal with the white balance.

The "Right" Time

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 30. September 2010 - 7:33

In the good old prehistoric days, I mean the film days, there was a counter on the top of the camera that showed which frame was going to be next. So during events, weddings... you could write film AB-103 frame 1 to 7: Kathy Schputz. Frame 8 to 19: John Turkey & Jane Pinkus...

Now in the digital world, we don't really know, unless you have a lot of money. The Canon 1D serie and the Nikon D3 serie have an LCD counter in the lower back portion of the camera.

Canon 60D vs Nikon D7000 vs Canon 7D

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 24. September 2010 - 6:21

First of all I want to give a great "thank you" to Nikon for introducing the Nikon D7000. I hope sincerely that the D7000 does very well. That's coming from a "Canon guy". I wrote about it on 24-Aug-2010 in Where's Nikon?.

The Canon 7D has been available since October 2009. I bought mine in November 2009. The Canon 60D is starting to be available this week. The Nikon 7000D is not available yet. A few "chosen' people had it, but that's it. So why do so many people are rating the 3 cameras? How are they reviewing them?

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