Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Canon 1Dx thoughts

Damn! $6,800? This sure makes a second-gen 1Ds mkII look like a deal now, if you can find one in good shape. Looking at Rob Galbraith's site has me questioning the AF performance of Canon's top cameras now. Rob doesn't have any complaints posted about the 7D though, but since it's not a full-frame body, it's not on my list.

Dear Canon, what I'd like is a 7D body with the sensor from the original 5D. 'K? Thanks! I want the separate AF processing chip and the wireless flash control built-in. And that creamy narrow DOF that a full-frame body possess. Would this be too difficult for you? This way I can take advantage of the excellent sharpness your lenes exhibit.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

RIP Dan Wheldon

Sad, sad day in Indy Car racing. Dan Wheldon passed away in a truly awful crash at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, leaving behind his wife Susie and two little boys. Terrible news...

Monday, October 10, 2011

One body shooting

It is dang tough to shoot an event with just one body. Impossible to do it with one body and primes. I was thinking these thoughts as I was shooting the Formula Drift 2011 Season Finale at Irwindale this past weekend. Since I was shooting with for a magazine, I can't concentrate on making only artsy photos with primes. I have to be able to shoot off-the-cuff rapidly, and that means a zoom lens is required. I want bokeh, and my little zooms aren't delivering that. Decisions, decisions...

Monday, October 3, 2011

Sony A77? No, no no!

Ah Sony... so many tricks, so little use for them. 12 FPS, but you can only shoot wide open because the camera can't control the f-stop fast enough? Really? Buffer only holds 13 shots? So, truthfully, the 12 FPS burst speed is useless. One second of shooting at 12 FPS, which may result in over-exposed shots because the aperture can only be wide open?

Now, shooting at 8 FPS is very fast, but again, if it can only do 13 shots in a row before the buffer is full then it may be of very little use out in the real world. This spec can be matched by any old used Nikon D300 or D700 with a battery grip, or by the Canon 7D straight out of the box.

Hard to see what Sony's thinking with this one. At least the A900/A850 twins were sheer photographic tools with zero frills. This one seems to be more "because we're Sony and we can" fluff than it should be.