For those into the technical details of my photography, here is my current equipment:
Canon EOS 60D - just upgraded this month, after rigorous testing of the alternatives. I knew I wanted a flip-out screen, and that fortunately limited my options. The 60D won out by having much superior controls, which by now is the more distinguishing factor.
Canon EOS 350D - my first DSLR. It's old and has crufty AF, so it plays backup camera.
Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro - my most beloved lens, it renders beautifully but is not long enough for photo walks. I use this for portraits as well as macros.
Canon EF-S 55-250 f/3.5-5.6 IS - my walk-about lens. Long enough to capture details, barely wide enough to get context shots.
Sigma 18-125 f/3.5-5.6 - my "vacation lens". I end up regretting whenever I only bring this, but I have nothing else that's this wide. It renders flatly and with smushed colors.
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 - for low light.
Induro AX-214 tripod - very flexible, good sturdy design, comes with a nice carrying bag and a little bag with extra spiked feet. It's nice.
White foldable bounce, 60cm wide - portable yet useful.
Strobist flash - somewhat less automatic than Canon or even Promaster, but very flexible powerful for the price.
Canon remove release - best $25 I ever spent on camera equipment. Lives unobtrusively on my strap and allows immediate or 2-second delay shots. Nothing else, and that's what I need.
Lightroom 4 - my favorite photo program. It slices, it dices, it even uploads to this blog.
CarrySpeed shoulder strap - solves the problem of the strap having to slide around your shoulder when bringing up the camera. Well worth the €50.
I have a penchant for the odd combinations (as evidenced here and here), and they're fun to play around with, but I will eventually need something better than what I have now. An ultra-wide, a better mid-range, perhaps, and a body with good AF, swivel screen, better ISO and per-lens micoradjustment are all pretty high on my list.
Showing posts with label lenses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lenses. Show all posts
Sunday 24 February 2013
Thursday 24 March 2011
Moving time
If you take a careful look at my blog profile info and the posts in this blog, you'll notice some posts that are older than the profile. How's that? Elementary, my dear Watson, this blog has moved from its old home on LiveJournal (where the ads finally got to be too annoying). And, it got a new name in the process: Walk Softly and Carry a Long Lens.
This name came about as I looked over shots
from my various outings. I tend to take many shots at many focal lengths, but was finding that the most striking and interesting images were taken at longer lengths. For instance, the photo on the right was taken in a crowd of costumed people at 250mm. While I have other nice photos from the Fasching party at Viktualienmarkt, this is the only one that really "speaks".
So while I used to have my "walkaround" 18-125 lens on my camera by default, now it's the 55-250 that lives there. It has a nice zoom range for getting details and still getting some context when needed. At the same time, I would like to get an ultra-wide like the Sigma 8-16, but that would call for a different and much more deliberate style of photography.
This name came about as I looked over shots
from my various outings. I tend to take many shots at many focal lengths, but was finding that the most striking and interesting images were taken at longer lengths. For instance, the photo on the right was taken in a crowd of costumed people at 250mm. While I have other nice photos from the Fasching party at Viktualienmarkt, this is the only one that really "speaks".So while I used to have my "walkaround" 18-125 lens on my camera by default, now it's the 55-250 that lives there. It has a nice zoom range for getting details and still getting some context when needed. At the same time, I would like to get an ultra-wide like the Sigma 8-16, but that would call for a different and much more deliberate style of photography.
Thursday 13 May 2010
Focal length statistics
A nice little plug-in called data plot from Jeffrey Friedl confirmed what I suspected: My primes have a much larger percentage of keepers than my zooms.
All my pictures come out with the following distribution of focal length:
This graph mostly shows that while my SLR was new and I took pictures of everything that moved, I only had the 18-125 (28-200 equiv.). Thus the big clump at the bottom and the spike at 200 - I like tele shots. My two primes fall into the 71-89 and 90-108 mm range, hence extra many there. I hardly ever use my tele lenses at the outermost 1/4 except by having them "all racked out". One could say that that means I need more tele, but I think there'd always be a spike at the end as I tend to go for the limits. There's also a nice spike at the wide-angle side. 27% prime lens usage overall.
Let's take a look at which focal lengths/lenses give the most keepers. I rate my images with stars in the following manner:
1 star - unfocused, random, could probably be deleted.
2 stars - technically OK, compositionally not horrible. Can be used externally in a pinch.
3 stars - a good photo, can reasonably be used externally.
4 stars - a really good photo, likely to be used if part of an assignment.
5 stars - my very best. Will be used in portfolios, exhibits, on-line galleries etc.
1 star:
One confusing point here is that the 50 and 60 mms (incorrectly) got lumped into one group. A lot of the bulk in non-tele area has been removed, or possibly I just haven't rated so many of the earlier ones. 30% primes - various experiments have put a lot of prime pictures in here.
2 stars:
More of the wide-to-middle range feature here, probably travel snapshots that turned out ok. 21% primes - they get dwarfed by the snapshotting.
3 stars:
A smaller part of the good ones are in the middle area, but the primes and far ends hold their ground. The spike at 200 (far end of my 18-125) is shrinking, seems like that's pushing it too far. 25% primes, they're starting to pull away from the pack.
4 stars:
Up in the really good pictures area, I have a whopping 40% primes. There's still a spike at 200mm, but the medium range area and longest zoom have collapsed significantly.
5 stars:
Again, the primes hold a disproportionately large part (38%) of the "greatest hits". Probably because I tend to use the primes for critical things (assignments) and be more careful when I use them (macro). But to a certain degree also just because they (especially the 60mm) are just better. The remainder are fairly randomly scattered, with a spike at 200mm still, but not a very pronounced amount at 18mm - that lens is pretty weak there, and not wide-angle enough to be really impressive. The spike at 131-148 is curious: It's neither the near nor far end of any of my lenses, nor a prime. Maybe it's a sign that I really do need to get the 85 f/1.2 when I have DKK 10000+ available (though if Ken Rockwell is right that "For most people, even if someone was giving these away for free, the 85mm f/1.8 is a better lens because it focuses faster, focuses more easily, focuses closer, has less flare, weighs a lot less and is just as sharp," the 85mm f/1.8 at about DKK 2000 might be a good portrait lens for me. I just felt the lack of more light the last time I did portraits.
All my pictures come out with the following distribution of focal length:
This graph mostly shows that while my SLR was new and I took pictures of everything that moved, I only had the 18-125 (28-200 equiv.). Thus the big clump at the bottom and the spike at 200 - I like tele shots. My two primes fall into the 71-89 and 90-108 mm range, hence extra many there. I hardly ever use my tele lenses at the outermost 1/4 except by having them "all racked out". One could say that that means I need more tele, but I think there'd always be a spike at the end as I tend to go for the limits. There's also a nice spike at the wide-angle side. 27% prime lens usage overall.
Let's take a look at which focal lengths/lenses give the most keepers. I rate my images with stars in the following manner:
1 star - unfocused, random, could probably be deleted.
2 stars - technically OK, compositionally not horrible. Can be used externally in a pinch.
3 stars - a good photo, can reasonably be used externally.
4 stars - a really good photo, likely to be used if part of an assignment.
5 stars - my very best. Will be used in portfolios, exhibits, on-line galleries etc.
1 star:
One confusing point here is that the 50 and 60 mms (incorrectly) got lumped into one group. A lot of the bulk in non-tele area has been removed, or possibly I just haven't rated so many of the earlier ones. 30% primes - various experiments have put a lot of prime pictures in here.
2 stars:
More of the wide-to-middle range feature here, probably travel snapshots that turned out ok. 21% primes - they get dwarfed by the snapshotting.
3 stars:
A smaller part of the good ones are in the middle area, but the primes and far ends hold their ground. The spike at 200 (far end of my 18-125) is shrinking, seems like that's pushing it too far. 25% primes, they're starting to pull away from the pack.
4 stars:
Up in the really good pictures area, I have a whopping 40% primes. There's still a spike at 200mm, but the medium range area and longest zoom have collapsed significantly.
5 stars:
Again, the primes hold a disproportionately large part (38%) of the "greatest hits". Probably because I tend to use the primes for critical things (assignments) and be more careful when I use them (macro). But to a certain degree also just because they (especially the 60mm) are just better. The remainder are fairly randomly scattered, with a spike at 200mm still, but not a very pronounced amount at 18mm - that lens is pretty weak there, and not wide-angle enough to be really impressive. The spike at 131-148 is curious: It's neither the near nor far end of any of my lenses, nor a prime. Maybe it's a sign that I really do need to get the 85 f/1.2 when I have DKK 10000+ available (though if Ken Rockwell is right that "For most people, even if someone was giving these away for free, the 85mm f/1.8 is a better lens because it focuses faster, focuses more easily, focuses closer, has less flare, weighs a lot less and is just as sharp," the 85mm f/1.8 at about DKK 2000 might be a good portrait lens for me. I just felt the lack of more light the last time I did portraits.
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