A Sad Note

Today my worst fear has come true - my most loved lens, the Canon EF 200mm f1.8 has stopped working.  I have had this lens for many years, and used it with all sorts of Canon cameras from the original 1Ds to the 1D Mark III and always gave me fantastic image quality.  We went to Guildwood Park today and everything was fine and I even took some pictures with it on our way home, but it's now dead.  No AF or even manual focus.

I am so sad, because the most likely case will be that there is no part to fix it.  Canon no longer has parts for this 24 year old lens.  It remains the fastest auto focus 200mm consumer lens in the world.  I will try the repair shops, but my hope is not too high.

Dillon Getting the shot - Canon 1D Mark III & EF 200mm f1.8 @ f1.8. Click for larger.

Autumn Colours - Canon 1D Mark III & EF 200mm f1.8 @ f1.8. Click for larger.

Sally with the wrong camera :) - Canon 1D Mark III & EF 200mm f1.8 @ f1.8. Click for larger.

Sunset on Queen Street

Sometimes you can get a glimpse of a sunset in the city; it can even be beautiful. The only trouble is capturing it faithfully.  With today's sensors, it's near impossible to record the shadow details in such a high contrast situation, without resorting to HDR of some kind.  Sensors today just do not have the dynamic range of the human eye yet, but I think they will be in a decade's time, or even less.

Sunset - NEX-5N & Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm f1.4 HFT QBM 

Canon EF 100mm f2 USM - Samples Pictures

The Canon 100mm f2 is one of my favourite lenses, especially on full frame.  It is an underrated lens, overshadowed by the 85mm f1.8, and the 100mm f2.8 macro.  Most people who consider the 100mm focal length, would most likely go for the 100mm f2.8 macro, as it's a much more versatile lens, though one stop slower.  Personally, I think the one stop makes a difference, as f2 can be a working aperture.  Truly a great lens to own and use.

I used the 100mm f2 lens with the Canon T2i.  I originally owned this camera for a few months after it was introduced, but didn't like image quality and sold it..  Now that I have a chance to use it again, I miss how responsive the camera performs; more so that the Sony NEX-5N, especially on image playback.  Still, the sensor in the NEX-5N is much better than the T2i with lower noise and more dynamic range.

Maple Leaves - Canon T2i & EF 100mm f2 @ f2.2. Click for larger. 

In the Rain - Canon T2i & EF 100mm f2 @ f2.2. 

Stop - Canon T2i & EF 100mm f2 @ f2. 

Under Construction - Canon T2i & EF 100mm f2 @ f4. 

An Afternoon with the Canon EF 50mm f1.8 Mark I

Picked up a used Canon T2i (550D) for Dillon, for another slight upgrade from the XSi.  It's ridiculous how cheap used digital SLRs have become.  I wonder if it even makes sense to buy new cameras at all, as lower end digital SLRs retain their value at about 30% of the original price.  Before getting rid of the XSi, I thought I would use it a bit, as my Canon lenses have not been getting much love lately.  I shot with the 100mm f2.8L macro the other day, so today I used the EF 50mm f1.8 Mark I, the metal mount version.

Although the 50mm f1.8 Mark I uses a lot of plastic, its built is much better than the Plastic Fantastic (version II).  I owned version II for a while, before upgraded to the 50mm f1.4.  Both versions of the 50mm f1.8 focuses very noisily, if you are used to the silent USM lenses, but the Mark I feels more like a lens than a toy.  Both lenses are optically similar, but version II has newer lens coating.  I actually prefer Mark I which I think is sharper at the corner in large apertures.  Overall, it's a nice little lens that despite the age, performs really well.  If you don't care about the 2/3 of a stop slower, there is little advantage to upgrade to the 50mm f1.4 USM.

A note on the XSi body.  Though it's a Rebel, the focus is very quick and quite accurate, very similar to the Canon 30D I had.  However, the file shows its age compared to the Sony NEX-5N.  Even at low ISO, the Sony images are cleaner.  But, it's better than the T2i.  Yes, the older XSi has better low ISO image quality the newer T2i. A shame, really.

Startled Birds - Canon Rebel XSi & EF 50mm f1.8 Mark I @ f2.8. Click for larger.

Playground - Canon Rebel XSi & EF 50mm f1.8 Mark I @ f2.8. Click for larger.

Cyclist - Canon Rebel XSi & EF 50mm f1.8 Mark I @ f1.8. 

Bridgepoint Hospital in Distance - Canon Rebel XSi & EF 50mm f1.8 @ f4.0

More Samples from Birns & Sawyer [Tewe] 200mm f3.2

The more I use the Birns & Sawyer [Tewe] 200mm f3.2, the more I like it.  I didn't have a very good impression of it the first time I used it and found that its bokeh was somewhat distracting.  Then I found that for some scenes, no matter what lens you use, the bokeh will look awful.  This lens is growing on me.

Fall Colours - NEX-5N & Birns & Sawyer 200mm f3.2. Click for larger

Park Benches - NEX-5N & Birns & Sawyer 200mm f3.2. Click for larger

In-Body vs Lens Based Image Stabilization

The topic of in-body vs lens Image Stabilization (IS) has been talked to death, but I thought I would add my two cents.  The only camera that I owned, and had in-body IS was the Pentax K10D.  Sorry to say, but it was not as effective as I was hoping for, and certainly was not even close to the lens based stabilization of Canon lenses that I am familiar with.  After the experience with K10D, I am a bit wary of cameras with in-body IS.

I am sure with newer generations of in-body IS is much better than the first generation that was in the K10D, especially the advanced one found in the Olympus OM-D EM-5.  But I feel more confident using lens based IS, as the effect of IS is clearly visible in the viewfinder and I can judge how far I can go before pictures will start to look blurry.  I have not used the EM-5, so I can't say how the viewfinder will show the effect of IS.  I like the fact that in-body IS will work with ALL lenses attached to the camera, and this is especially useful for lens junkies like me, who uses mostly manual focus lenses.  An effective in-body IS system is a godsend. Though I still believe lens based IS is more effective, I really want a camera with in-body IS that's comparable to lens based IS, and currently only the Olympus EM-5 is competitive in this regard.

I am hoping the price of the EM-5 will drop by Christmas, which will push me to buy one :)

Nick Nack - Canon Rebel XSi & EF 100mm f2.8L IS Macro

My In-Law's Backyard #2

Here are few more "very old" pictures taken in the In-Law's backyard.  I used the backyard for many of my "lens testing".  Over the years, some of the items shot in these pictures are no longer there or now look different.  That's another reason many of us love photography; to record the moment that may never be the same again.  After many years of taking pictures, I have noticed that some of the very ordinary places that I took pictures of, now either no longer exist, or have changed greatly.  If there are places/things that you want to document or take pictures of, do it now, or you may not have another chance later.

Clothespin [2008] - Pentax K10D & Vivitar 70-150mm f3.8. Click for larger.

Dandelion [2007] - Canon 20D & Tamron SP 500mm f8 Mirror Lens. 

Fall leaves [2007] - Canon 1D Mark II & Meyer-Optik 400mm f5.5 Telemegor

My In-Law's Backyard

It's unbelievable how many hours I have spent in my in-law's backyard taking pictures over the last 15 years or so.  Considering that it does not even have a garden, what makes it so attractive to me?  Boredom, really.  We visit the in-laws once a week on the weekends, with very little interruption.  Most days, my kids can hang out with their many cousins, and I usually just go out and take pictures, and in the backyard I spent countless hours, taking mostly close-up pictures of whatever look interesting.  I actually was thinking about making a photobook with the many pictures I took there. Interestingly, I never get bored doing it.  There is always something that I can find worth photographying.

Colour Leaves at in-law's backyard - NEX-5N & Kern-Paillard Switar 50mm f1.4. Click for larger.

Sign of Autumn

Autumn has always been my favourite season.  For those of you who live in paradise where temperature is pretty much constantly warm all year round, you may not understand the big deal of changing of seasons.  To me, autumn is a perfect balance; no hot temperature and high humidity of summer, and no bone chilling winds of winter.  Just crisp clean air, with beautiful changing of colours.

Sign of autumn - NEX-5N & Apollo 135mm f1.8

A New Photo Book Project

I have finally started to make one of the two books that I said I was going to do at the beginning of the year. Unlike others, who may not have enough material for the book, I have the opposite problem - there are too many pictures to choose from.  I started with the easy one, I call it "The Alt Lens Book" that has a section for cine lenses, normal manual focus lenses, projection lenses, enlarging lenses, and "do it yourself" lenses.  There will be two pictures for each lens.  Already, I am not even done with cine lenses, and already am at page 42 of the book.  I would imagine that if I use all the lenses I ever used in this book, it will run into hundreds of pages, so I will have to drop some of them.  The book will be 8x10 in size, probably going to be around 150 to 200 pages.

The service that I am using for the book is called Blurb.  I did two books already with them, one for my sister-in-law's wedding, and another for a co-worker.  The books came out pretty good, and it's the cheapest I could find.  Now they also have different grades of paper to choose from, which was not available when I did the two books.  The BookSmart software provided is easy to work with.

Once the book is done, I will provide a link to the book so that if anyone is interested, you can take a look at it.  That's one of the nice things about Blurb is that once a book is printed, it's available for others to browse.  You can also list it for sale on their site, if you want to.  For Canadians, they now have a Canadian division and you can pay in Canadian dollars, instead of US.  Again, this is new and was not available when I did my other books.

Screen shot of my book in progress.  Click for larger.