November 20, 2006
Canon EOS400D Digital SLR
So, I got a new toy on Friday, a long awaited Canon EOS 400D. A serious digital SLR, instead of the compact Sony DSC-V1 that has been my trusty friend for the last three years.
A crazy increase from 5.0 megapixels to 10.1 megapixels goes to show where technology has headed over the last three years. Now I just hope that my storage keeps up with my requirements. At 3mb per image in JPG format, the EOS400D can certainly chew up hard drive space, especially when I shoot 509 pictures in the first three days.
It’s about time I stepped out of my comfort zone with my photography, and started learning more about exposure, speeds, ISO, etc.
The pic above shows you what I was shooting on Sunday - the Red Bull Air Race came to Perth, Western Australia for the final stage of the 2006 World Series. An estimated 300,000 turned up on the banks of the Swan River to watch it, and a further 11 million watched it around the globe. An amazing new sport, completely created by a company looking for a sport to sponsor and promote - those marketing propeller heads at Red Bull are onto a winner.
Image: Michael Goulian in 2006 Red Bull Air Race, Perth WA.
November 20th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Ok, this is OFFICIALLY scary.
On Saturday, we purchased a new Canon EOS 400D - to replace out trusty but aging three year old Sony DSC-V1.
Where else to try out our new camera but at the 2006 Red Bull Air Race.
‘Tis the truth.
A
November 20th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
Wow! Guess great minds think alike! We can’t get over our new “depth of field” capabilities… very slick.
November 21st, 2006 at 6:33 am
Sounds nice! I think I’ll be upgrading sometime in the next 6 months from my Fujifilm Finepix F700 - it’s served me well, but I do miss my 30 year old Ricoh XR-1 SLR; so I’m keen to move to a DSLR. I’ve found myself relying too much on the automatic controls rather than taking the time to compose the scene, do the light measurements, calculate the exposure - which is half the fun (and all the professionalism) of photography.
November 21st, 2006 at 11:45 am
In addition to shutter speed, aperture and ISO/film speed (sensitivity), you need to discover RAW format (and suddenly file sizes double) but with 16 bit per channel colour information and far more control (ie changing white balance in post processing). It is a steep learning curve, but the end results should be worth it.
Mind you I can’t really comment, I went from a fully manual film SLR, to a high end (ie manual controls) compact digital camera and now to a stick in my pocket point and shoot digital camera.
November 21st, 2006 at 6:22 pm
Also with RAW you can edit / tweak it in PS and not touch the original image, you can also be amazing depth of field and pull colours from the darkness via using multiple shots of the same subject in a burst mode.
What lens did you get the standard or one of the add on packs.
Don’t put this one down on the table at Port80, it will disappear!