Breaking in the New Camera
January 4, 2014
OK. So, I bought a new camera. I've been using a Canon SX40 HS for the last year and a half or so. It's not a bad camera at all for a point and shoot. It's got a nice zoom lens built into it with which I've taken a lot of pictures. I've been happy with it.
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| Black Phoebe -- Alameda, CA |
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| Barrows Goldeneyes |
I took the pictures of the black phoebe and the goldeneyes with my SX40 this morning. See, not bad, right? Honestly, I'm not upgrading because I was at all unhappy with that camera. I've been having a whole lot of fun taking pictures over the last year and a half, and it just felt like it was time to open things up a little bit. I took my time and studied up, and I think I've got the right camera for where I'm at with photography.
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| Oakland/Alameda Estuary, CA |
My new camera is a Canon EOS Rebel T5i. I'll have a 250mm zoom lens for it soon. Hopefully that lens will have enough reach to keep me satisfied for a while. I seriously considered going with the comparable Nikon D5200. Same price range, same basic feature set minus the flippy-swivelly touch screen monitor, which was actually a big selling point to me. It boiled down to slightly better picture quality with the Nikon or an easier learning curve and more goo-gaws with the Canon. I went with fun to use over superior picture quality. I'm more of an adventurer with the camera than an artist, I guess.
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| Ring-billed Gull -- Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline, CA |
A couple of things are obvious to me after only a day of playing with this camera. First, I can take action shots now. If you notice in past entries for this blog, there aren't a lot of action shots, especially where birds are concerned. The SX40 just isn't fast enough. The T5i can fire off five shots per second and is adept at tracking moving subjects. It used to be sheer luck for me to get a usable picture of a bird in flight. It doesn't look like that's going to be a problem with the Rebel.
Also, with the touch screen I can establish the focus point in any given shot just by pointing to it on the touch screen. How sweet is that? The SX40 is pretty good at guessing what I'm trying to focus on, but it's easily confused by branches and tall grass. Hopefully that problem is a thing of the past.
It also looks like post-processing is going to be a whole lot easier. I always have to monkey with the brightness and contrast with the pictures I get from the SX40. I've only had to perform minor tweaks on the T5i's photos, and in fact most of the time I didn't need to do anything at all. These pictures come out of the camera looking great.
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| Ring-billed Gulls -- Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline, CA |
I guess I'm a little excited about the possibilities. Bring on 2014!
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| Ring-billed Gull -- Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline, CA |
My new camera is a Canon EOS Rebel T5i. I'll have a 250mm zoom lens for it soon. Hopefully that lens will have enough reach to keep me satisfied for a while. I seriously considered going with the comparable Nikon D5200. Same price range, same basic feature set minus the flippy-swivelly touch screen monitor, which was actually a big selling point to me. It boiled down to slightly better picture quality with the Nikon or an easier learning curve and more goo-gaws with the Canon. I went with fun to use over superior picture quality. I'm more of an adventurer with the camera than an artist, I guess.
A couple of things are obvious to me after only a day of playing with this camera. First, I can take action shots now. If you notice in past entries for this blog, there aren't a lot of action shots, especially where birds are concerned. The SX40 just isn't fast enough. The T5i can fire off five shots per second and is adept at tracking moving subjects. It used to be sheer luck for me to get a usable picture of a bird in flight. It doesn't look like that's going to be a problem with the Rebel.
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