Learning

Canon 6D

Does your brain hurt when you learn new things? I know at 48, mine does. I have put myself in the predicament of learning a few new things.

First, due to the untimely coma of my Canon 70D cropped sensor dslr, and having to send it in for repair, I have rented a Canon 6D full frame. The basics of the 6D were very similar to my 70D, but its the little things, like remembering to change the setting to shoot in RAW and not JPEG. It was a day before I realized that - oops!

Then there was a little glitch in my first full day of shooting with the rental camera. I was out on an adventure day, at the very same state park I was at the week before when my own camera died and I got rained on. Only an hour into my morning, I decided to use the porta potty (chai latte you know), just as I was finishing, my back decided to spasm and tightened up on me. I have had back problems on and off all my adult life. I can go years without problems, and then have several episodes within a six month time span. Thankfully due to my working out at the gym, the episodes are not near as severe as they once were (before the gym and this would have happened, I would have been lying on the floor of that porta potty unable to move, not a pleasant picture) and now they only last a day or two, before it would have been a week of couch time. But still two days of down time cut into my week of renting. I hesitate to go back to the same state park for a third time this week, but as I discussed with a friend on Wednesday, it will either be three strikes and I'm out, or third times the charm. I guess we will see...

The second thing I am learning is patience. I hate having to continually learn patience. 

The third thing I am trying to learn is Lightroom's Print Module, so I can make come custom templates for my blog. I have played around with the module before, but it has been a while, and if you don't use it you lose it. I lost it. 

L - Canon 6D -- R - Canon T2i

I was awake at 1 a.m. Friday morning trying to figure where to go to do the comparison shots I wanted to do with the 6D and my old cropped sensor Canon the T2i. Seeing is always believing. I don't think I got back to sleep until 4 a.m., but at least I came up with a solution - Windmill Island. I wanted someplace close, so I didn't have to drive far, but had interesting and varying sights. Also where it wasn't far to the car to switch cameras, there was no way I was carrying both, due to the back issue. 

I haven't been to Windmill Island since Tulip Time - a very popular festival here in our town. I always forget how beautiful the gardens are until I go, and then I think - why don't I come here more often? It is free to local residents. Note to self - add Windmill Island to my repertoire of local shooting locations. 

The top photo was shot with the Canon 6D full frame, the bottom photo shot with the Canon T2i cropped sensor. In both instances I used the 35mm f/1.4L lens. I stood in approximately the same place for each photo. Quite the difference. 

The photo on the left was the Canon 6D, the photo on the right the Canon T2i. I stood in the same place for both and processed both the same. 

I chose the Canon 6D to rent over the Canon 5D Mark lll mainly because of weight, the 6D being a bit lighter. My only concern was focusing points, the 5D Mark lll has 64, the 6D only has 13. Thus far it hasn't been a problem, and it makes me think about my composition. 

Canon T2i

I love using prime lenses. I think having shot a lot with my iPhone over the past few years has taught me to move my body instead of the lens. Now when I do have a zoom lens on my camera, I forget half the time that it moves. 

I extended my rental of the 6D for a couple more days, due to the loss of a couple of days, so I have a little more time, but thus far I would say the 6D is a winner. 

Update on my camera repair - I know that Canon has received my camera, they sent a lovely email, and it looks like it is still under warranty, but other than that I am still waiting to hear if they figured out what is wrong with it.

Unsettled

I have been feeling a bit unsettled in my photography lately. Not unsettled in the way that I want to stop doing it, but unsettled in the fact that I want to do more, I want to do different things, I want to learn and get better.

I am also finding myself turning more inward - growing tired of social media, and in particular Instagram. The constant sharing and "liking", double tapping without taking the time to really see a photograph or read the words written has worn me out.

I am finding myself drawn to my Canon 70D, the quality and abilities of different lenses can not be matched by the iPhone. I have been reading the book Canon Lens From Snapshots to Great Shots. It has made me think about what I love to shoot, what I would love to learn to shoot, what is currently in my camera bag, what I would like to add to my camera bag and what I could purge out of my camera bag.

On that note, I recently rented the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 lens for a project that I was doing for a dear friend. I can see now why they say the "glass" makes the difference. LOVED the lens!

My husband and I happened to be away for a couple days at the beginning of the rental period, so I was able to wander by myself for a whole day with my camera while he was at a work conference. It is a heavier lens and not something I would take on an all day hike, but great for an all day wander around a lakeside town.

It is hard to put into words all that is churning inside me right now, as you can probably tell from this post, but I know when I feel like this something is usually looming on the horizon.

Canon T6s Review

It was with great sadness that I boxed up my latest camera rental, the Canon T6s, from Borrowedlenses.com last week and returned it to them via Fed-Ex. I rented this camera for a ten day period, just as I had done with my first camera rental, the Fuji X-T1.

This time instead of taking the rental on a trip, I used it just as I would in my everyday life, which meant lots of mornings spent at the beach.

I tried a variety of my lenses on it, capturing some of my normal things like tug boats in the harbor, but I also put my underused telephoto lens on it and did a little wildlife shooting.

Now, I must admit that Canon is my comfort zone, as opposed to the Fuji that I tried the first time, and that may have flavored my happiness with the camera somewhat, but there were still some pros and cons to it.

First of all, the thing that I disliked the most about the Fuji X-T1, the LCD screen, is the thing I loved most about the Canon T6s. The ability of the Canon's screen to fully flip out and rotate 180 degrees was a big selling point for me. It was so much easier to compose a low to the ground shot with the Canon screen, and the ability for it to flip 180 degrees made my self-portraiture work so much easier. The Fuji screen only tilted, instead of flipping out and around. There is still a regular viewfinder, so once the shot is composed, I can set my focusing point through the viewfinder, having to bend only once instead of ten times, making my back so much happier.

Some additional pros - very light weight, and a locking button for the mode selector. My current Canon does not have that and I am always finding myself in Manual Mode or TV mode unintentionally.

Some cons - I did not like having the movie button grouped together with the on/off switch. More than once when it was dusky outside, I accidentally put it in movie mode, and then I wondered why when I got home and loaded my photos, I had some weird movies as well. Also, while I love that the body is lightweight, I wonder about the durability of it long term. I noticed already, this being a rental camera and used by a variety of people, that the latch for the battery compartment was starting to break. Speaking of batteries, I found the battery life to not be as long as my current five year old camera.

I was super happy with the image quality though, and noticed a nice improvement from my obsolete, five year old Canon T2i.

After renting the T6s, my decision was made, the articulating screen sold me, and in the two days that I waited for my new camera to arrive, there were a multitude of times that I wished I had that screen to use for a composition or low to the ground shot.

While you might be thinking I got the T6s, in spite of some of the cons, that would be incorrect. I bought one step up, the highest level Canon I could get with the articulating screen, the Canon 70D. The screen sold me, but I wanted a sturdier body, and a few more bells and whistles, including a dedicated AF Lock button, and a separate movie button. Also the battery life reviewed much higher than the T6s, an important factor when I am out and about all day.

There is a learning curve, as there is with anything new and different, but thus far, I am enjoying my new camera immensely.

Out with the Old, In with the New

I currently shoot with a Canon Rebel T2i, a prosumer model from five years ago. Five years, my how quickly time flies.

I love my camera, it has been my constant companion through many adventures; trips to Alaska, Montana, The Great Smoky Mountains, Caribbean cruises, and local, small town, walk-about adventures.

My camera has taught me patience. It has taught me what I like to shoot and what I don't like to shoot,  it has stuck with me through many different photographic directions. My camera has seen me go from shooting in full automatic mode to a deep love of Aperture Priority Mode, and the occasional venture into manual mode.

It is with great sadness that I confession I am looking at replacing my T2i, and ending our five year relationship. Since the beginning of the year, I have been looking and reading; considering deeply how I shoot, what I shoot, what my future needs might be. I have been asking fellow photographer's opinions, and everybody has a different one. But ultimately it is about me and how I will be using the camera tomorrow, next year and five years from now.

With all that in mind I paid a visit to my local camera store last month. I needed to feel these cameras in my, large for a woman hands, I needed to ask questions and seek advice from the camera professionals. My starting point was the raved about mirrorless cameras. Honestly most were too small for my large hands, and just didn't feel right. One intrigued me though, the Fuji X-T1, that fit my hands, and is well liked among photographers and well reviewed.

Being a much smarter photographer than I was five years ago, instead of just buying a camera and hoping I liked it, I decided to rent the Fuji X-T1 and take it with me on my trip to Chicago. A trip like Chicago is exactly the kind of trip I would want a light weight, but fully functioning camera for. I rented from BorrowedLenses.com. I would highly recommend them if you are thinking of renting any gear, whether it be a camera body, lenses or accessories. I rented the Fuji for 10 days, allowing for a few days on each side of my trip. I had to watch a couple of You Tube videos once it arrived to figure out how to use it, not being familiar with Fujis. The videos were extremely helpful and I felt fairly prepared to shoot with it for ten days.

The first place I gave it a trial run was Cantigny Park in Wheaton, IL. Deanna and I went there for the afternoon after I arrived at her house in Naperville, and while we waited for our other friend Patti to arrive.

Let me say I am not a huge fan of using the back screen as my viewfinder, it was very hard to see what I was shooting using the LCD screen, especially in bright sunshine, which I shoot in most of the time. It does have an electronic viewfinder which worked infinitely better once I discovered the diopter to adjustment the visual so I could actually see through it. I did like the fact that I could see the histogram in the viewfinder as I took the shot, and that there was a leveling line. I am hopelessly crooked on a daily basis.

I did love the light-weighness of it, and the 18-55mm f/2.8 lens that I rented with the camera body fit my needs well, and was also fairly light weight. In another fifteen to twenty years, as I get older, I can definitely see the possible need of a light-weight camera such as this. But currently I already have a light-weight camera that I adore, my iPhone, and that fits the "easy to carry" requirement quite nicely.

One other note, I was warned by some of my photography friends to be sure and rent an extra battery as the mirrorless cameras seem to eat up battery power. I am happy to report that I used the same battery the whole time and never had to recharge, or use the spare battery. If I had used the Fuji the day we went downtown Chicago I am quite certain I would have had to change the battery, but I was pleased with the battery power, more than I expected to be.

So while a lovely camera, it is not the right camera for me at this time. The cost of the camera and new lenses doesn't justify for me the ease to carry and photos that are on the same quality level as my current Canon T2i.

When I was at the camera store in July, the salesgirl did point out one other option to me as a possibility, the Canon T6s, which holds quite a bit of promise for my self-portraiture work. I have rented that camera body and it will be arriving later this week. I will let you know how that fairs.