May 22 | Ask the Camera Guy (AKA: rumimume@gmail.com)

Ask the Camera Guy

 

Question: (asking for a friend) "What would you recommend for a trip to South Africa/wildlife tour. Not sure if they want interchangeable lens or point and shoot."

 

Answer: 

"wildlife tour" makes me think they want a big zoom. 

Zoom with your feet works well for street photography, but not so well for lions & hyenas.

So my 1st thought is a powershot. 

The canon powershot sx60 has 65x zoom , IS, 1080 video, tilt screen & connects to your phone.   

They're about $500 at bust buy, amazon, henry's etc*

I assume they aren't camera geeks (if they where they wouldn't be asking me for advice), which is why I started with a point and shoot. 

 

I they're looking for something more high-end or interchangeable lenses let me know (with some more details) & I'll give it some more thought.

There are some Sony's that are getting lots of hype for their low light capability that would be awesome for night safari's type stuff.  If they are doing that type of thing.

*I'm not receiving compensation from any one, these are just my opinions.

Not just the specs

I was recently asked for an opinion on a camera purchase. They didn't want to change careers and become a photographer, they weren't interested in impressing there friends with the latest thing. What they wanted was a camera that took good photos and was easy to use.

That's what often gets overlooked, ease of use. The specs are often pushed but they are just a place to start. Stats aren't everything, in-fact, for most people they aren't the most important factor in getting the  images they want. Ease of use and how well the specs are implemented is usually more important.

As an example if you had to go through 8 multiple choice menus packed with esoteric jargon to take a photo, you probably wouldn't bother. That's an extreme example but it illustrates a point. that usability is valuable. In today's market the differences are subtle, but still important.


I'd like to finish with a real life example of 'specs aren't everything'.
A while back someone asked me about a new camera. They didn't know much about cameras and were going on a  'bucket list' vacation, so they wanted "good pictures". They had seen a DSLR at a big box store and where asking about lenses and accessories and how long it would take to learn how to use.

They had a myriad of other questions  before they took the scary leap into "expensive professional cameras" at least that's how they saw it.I tried to give them all the info and talked them through a few things & showed them some stuff on my camera & they looked stressed, like really stressed. So much so I thought maybe they should go with a really good point and shoot. That might be a little less scary,  so I said there are other options, what exactly they expected to do with this new camera, or better yet what do they expect it to give them they're current camera couldn't. As soon as they started speaking I realized I should have started with those questions.

Stop the Action

They currently had a generic but decent compact point and shoot. They had been at a family BBQ and took a few snaps of kids running around and they where blurry, a relative with a DSLR got clear photos of the kids.  The thought then went like this "I'm going whale watching , the whales are moving (like the kids), therefore I need a DSLR to get clear pics."   A reasonable but not entirely actuate conclusion. I asked "do you shoot on Auto?"  "I don't know, what's that mean" was the response. That's when I finally clued in.
"can see your camera for a second" 
"sure"
beep beep bepp,
"here go home and take some pics of the kids and let me know how they turn out."
Next Day: "I took some pics of the kids on the trampoline, not blurry at all, everyone on facebook said they where great."

Problem solved.
 
They had asked me about a camera, but what they really wanted to know was how to get a pic of a whale that looked good on facebook. This person was about to spend $1000 on better specs, when they had all the specs they wanted. The only thing missing was a few choices.

"interesting" new macro lens anounced

A specially macro lens by venus optics that has a max f14, but has a 2:1 ratio.  That sounds pretty cool,  I've seen a few pics of the lens , but none taken WITH the lens.

Here is something that could be cool, or maybe just strange.  
Since it's only been announced I don't think we'll know which until they are out in the wild.

Find out more at No Film School.

Old School

I should have made this post a while ago, but better late than never.

A while back I got out my old 50mm F1.8 FD (manual focus) lens & spent my afternoon off playing with this vintage lens.

The manual focus & manual aperture took a while to get used to. I couldn't get (what I considered) a reasonably good image wide open, around f8 I was happier with the sharpness of the image.  A lot of this could be do to my inexperience with type of lens. I do focus manually a fair bit with modern lenses, but this was not quiet the same thing.

Outside in full sun it was f11 or slower, not to get a sharper image, but to control the light a bit better.  It seemed to let in more light than I would expect at a given F stop and faster f stops increased the glow & bloom that seems an inherent part of shooting with this lens.

The slightly soft focus & glow/bloom are part of what makes shooting with a vintage lens unique interesting.  At the same time I tried to gain some control over how much of these characteristics where in my shots.

Aside from trying different things in camera I also tried different approaches in post processing. Some images I tried to lessen the vintage feel and make them look more like what would be expected from a modern lens. Some images I didn't compensate for the effect of the lens & a few  I even pushed the "vintage-ness" even farther.

I only spent one afternoon shooting with this lens & initially wasn't too crazy about it, but then started to enjoy playing around with it.  Shooting with a fully manual vintage lens seems a lot more alchemical than shooting with modern auto everything lenses, its' more try this, try that, a little more, a little less, be more aware of light positions, reflections etc.

It's not my new 'go to' lens, but I will be playing with it some more, when I have time to play.

FD Lens

T5 vs T5i OR 1200D vs 700D

Someone (new to DSLRs) asked me about the difference between the canon 1200D (t5) and the 700D (t5i). I put together some info & sent it off to them, then thought "this might be of interest to other people"  so I turned it into a blog post. 

 

 

Basics & Recommendation

The 1220D (t5) will take perfectly good photos and not bad video.

But you'll have to work harder and take more to get the shots you want & you might be look for an upgrade a bit sooner.

The 700D(5ti) will take great photos and good video and make it easier to get the shots you want.  It's got more flexibility in how you use it, & a bit more you can do as you learn. It can also get some shots that the other just can't get, especially with low light, fast, bursts and videos.

As far as I'm concerned, if you can afford it the 700D(t5i) is definitely worth the extra money.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Explanation

T5 is one class lower than the other.

t5 & t5i are sort of marketing names for them. 
the real model names are 1200 D (5t) & 700D (t5i) with canon model numbers , lower is better.*

They have a lot of the same stuff so I 'll just list what the700D (t5i) has that the other doesn't or when it has improved versions of the same stuff.

700D (t5i) has:

- better screen resolution (almost double the pixels)

- swivel screen (doen't sound like much til you try to get shots from interesting angles. it's much easier to twist the screen towards you than twisting yourself to see the screen.

- Touchscreen.  you can use the menus by touch , you can also focus by touching the screen

- better auto focus. has more and better focus points than 1200d and an entirely different & better auto focus system making it faster & more accurate.

- auto focus during video (with the right lenses)

- better processor.  helps with the higher shooting speeds etc.

- higher FPS.  shoots more photos (frames) per second. 3fps for 1200, 4.8 fps for 700d

-Higher ISO. (25600 vs 12800)  which means it can take photos in much less light. theoretically it should be able to take see stuff in 1/2 the light of the other one. In practice , if you push them to their limits the phots will be grainy & pretty ugly, but you have the extra ISO what would have been an grainy shot that pushed the 1200d, could be a usable shot with the 700d, because it's not at it's limit. - has mic jack.  internal mics are pretty bad so being able to add a mic means you can make a video that people can listen too without cringing.

- better kit lens 18-55 STM (takes advantage of new auto focus system & can do auto focus in video.

Details

Links to canon for more info
1200D
700D


*Over view of model numbers
4 digit model (called XX00 ie 1200)  are 'consumer' models for basic snapshots & for your own social media.

3 digit models (XX0 ie 700D) are 'pro-sumer' models for people who want a step up from basic or for people becoming pros or starting out small. like selling photos to other people for their social media,  portraits etc.

2 digit models (X0 ie 80D) are solid pro models. better than the lower models but not as rugged  as the higher end models. sometimes new features are released here 1st to make sure they are dependable enough for the high end models.

single digit models (7d, 6d, 5d, 1d) are higher end pro-models for he big kids.  they have top of the line specs and are very dependable.

NAB 2

Forgot a few things

The RED world is getting ready for a new 8K sensor "WEAPON"


Freefly (the movi people)  have a new 1st AC controller so one person fly's the camera on a movi & the other person controls the camera from a separate unit that is motion based.  Looks cool, but I suspect it's 'no cheap' as they say.   Freefly might also be announcing another movi unit,   not sure about that one.

NAB 2015 - the craziness has begun !

* NAB is National Association of Broadcasters annual show in Las Vegas & usually features a lot of new announcements for equipment & software.

The announcements have already started leaking out even thought the doors haven't even opened.

1) Black majic  has it's own 4k copter cam (possible it's own copter)

2) Black majic is announcing a mini ursa rumoured to have 4.5K for around $3000).  I was totally impressed by the full size URSA I saw at the vistek show last fall, so I 'll be watching for more about the mini version.

3) 480GB usb drives are being released http://www.photographybay.com/2015/04/13/owc-envoy-pro-mini-is-a-desktop-class-ssd-in-a-thumb-drive/  , but they are more expensive than  a hard drive (for the space they provide)

That's all for now, more to come once the  doors open.

Link of the day - DOF simulator

cool FREE  Depth of Field simulator.

lets you change tons of stuff, and save your settings & send a link to others so they can see the same thing.

It's an online service, you can download it and run it offline in your browser & there's a phone version.

I guess it could be helpful planning shots before you go out in the field, but for me it mostly just fun to play with.