Hardware History
Please excuse some of the more hardware oriented posts but other peoples diaries have been very usefull in raising my awareness of what to look for in a product and what products work well and so I return the compliment. This may end up in a ‘history’ article at some point.
When I bought my first camera (Apart from the Zenith E I had when I was 14), I wasn’t particularly savvy about lenses or cameras and so made a few choices based on review sites that weren’t particularly accurate. The Canon 20D was a good choice but out of the Canon 70-300DO, 17-85 and 10-22, only the 10-22 was particularly satisfactory.
The 17-85 was a pain, showing large amounts of chromatic aberration and also very significant sensor bloom (see attached pictures). The CA can be fixed in photoshop but the purply blue sensor bloom added horrible color casts to any fine detail, high contrast areas (tree branches are a good example).
The 70-300 was a great lens most of the time but suffered from low contrast in the details, particularly annoying for grass/plants. It also was very sensitive to veiling flare.
The 10-22 however was great. A beautiful lens that only suffered from a little exessive radial blurring in the corners and a strangle colour cast (the cast was subtle and not noticeable unless compared directly to the results from other lenses).
The final lenses I bought were the 16-35 and the 50 f1.4. The 16-35 was quite good although smudgy in the corners wide open (see 16-9.net for better reviews). The 50 was loveley with a portrait freindly softness at 1.4 and a little at 1.8. An example of both lenses is given in posts with the relevant keywords. I also bought a manfrotto ball head 486RC2 (which I didn’t like, bad QR plate, fiddly and not that strong) and a Velbon sherpa CF631 which I still use. The whole lot went into a mini trekker bag.
A couple of months later I sold the 70-300 and 17-85 and bought a Really Right Stuff BH55 ball head and an Epson R2400 printer. The ballhead, along with an L plate, was fantastic and the printer worked a treat, allowing me to create my own prints on the same day as taking photographs. This setup was used for a year during which time I also got a 70-200 f4 and an RSS Omni Pivot package.
The next big change was when we got some more space in the attic and I replaced my 20D with a 5D which was an amazing change. At the same time I bought a 35 f1.4, 24TSE and a 100 Macro. I also bought a larger printer, some gear to frame pictures and a proper calibrated screen for my computer (what a difference that made).
Most recently, I’ve finally got a camera rucksack that doesn’t wreck my back (Lowepro Pro Trekker II), a laptop that actually works (MacBookPro) and got booked on a Light and Land course in the Hebrides.
As I’ve said, I’ll try not to talk technical too much, just enough to explain why I made the choices I have. I’ll expand a little on some of the items discussed if they are relevant (like how do you carry a large format camera and a 5D in a Pro Trekker bag) but for the most part I’ll try to discuss photography.
