Posts Tagged Lucille
Back to basics…
We finished the photo course. One of the graduates is also a skipper in his spare time, and he invited us all to a yacht sail out to sea last Saturday. Cool!
Yacht 1
Now I know I have the oldest and least capable camera compared to the others. Sure, I love my Lucille, but holding a better camera in my hands makes me want more. I also knew that everybody will bring their camera to the sail. Now was my chance to be special once more. I decided to leave Lucille at home and take my old Olympus camera with it’s underwater casing. The casing that cost me as much as the old camera did, and is the reason why I don’t throw the 3MP camera away. I wanted to take photos from the watery side of the yacht. Because I can 
Yacht 2
First thing I noticed is that the camera operated slow. Real slow. Slower than it did several years ago? Probably not. But I got used to something better, and going back is hard (which again supported my “don’t touch a new camera unless you’re buying it or you’ll regret it!”). Second thing I noticed is that just like riding a bike, I remembered all the buttons, locations, and little things about the camera (which tells me that I still don’t know Lucille as good as I should).
Yacht 3
The sail was great. Good people, good food and good alcohol make a winning combination. And the course? Really glad I took it. Now I need to see how I take this up to a higher level. My guess is I should mainly practice, practice, practice. But by judging how many photos I took recently (I can see by the time passed since my last post) I should start listening to myself and just go out with a camera in my hand, and see what comes out.
Kids in marina
Antibiotica at 50mm
She was getting upset. Whenever I took her to a concert she felt like she wasn’t good enough. So I decided to get Lucille new lens: the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II. The main reason for getting this is the maximum aperture of f/1.8, allowing both very shallow depth of field and more importantly for me: shooting at even lower light levels then I could with my current lens.
So we went for a test drive and took some photos of Antibiotica at a rehearsal:
Antibiotica rehearsal
I opened the aperture to its fullest, boosted the ISO, and started taking some photos. I’ll admit, the lighting was hard, my space was limited, no zoom on the lens and the auto focus on the lens did a terrible job. But nonetheless, some nice photos were taken there.
Antibiotica rehearsal
It’s true: the lens have difficulty focusing at low lighting (such as the above). They are highly criticized for being made out of cheap materials (I’m trying not to throw them on the floor to test that). But that makes the lens cheap, and being made mostly out of plastic and not metal also makes them lighter. In short: they’re a pretty good value-for-money in my opinion.
Antibiotica
Best thing about this evening: I kinda got a show for free. Plus food and beverage! I guess I should do this more often
You can find Antibiotica onFacebook, MySpace and their website. Listen to some tracks, and I’ll let you know when they have an upcoming show…
What a week…
Okay. So I picked up Lucille last Friday. How can I sum up the past 8 days?
 Efrat |
 Ayala |
Well, except for working, sleeping, eating and doing things I usually do, I took a pile of photos. A BIG pile of photos. Some were discarded on first sight. Most of them now gave me a hard time in selecting the elite, the chosen few, which will appear in this post. But basically I’m trying to figure out why the hell didn’t I buy a DSLR sooner?
 Efrat and Ayala |
 Hoopoe |
The camera is fast. Time from switching from “Off” to “On” until taking the first picture is instantaneous. I can take many consecutive photos in a quick burst – allowing me to “capture the moment” rather than waiting for the precise second, and potentially missing it by a milli-second. I know, it’s lazy of my behalf in some way, but if it helps achieve the desired result – I can’t really complain. In addition, image quality is amazing. Camera handles high ISOs very well and allows me to take photos at lighting conditions which proved to be impossible without a flash until now. Besides, I look very professional when I’m swapping the lens…
 White heron on deck |
 Dog on deck |
I took Lucille with me everywhere I went. The photos here are my favourites (out of 654 photos of the last 8 days). Picking them was not an easy task, to say the least. But these photos are the ones I like best for their technical parameters: image quality, exposure, DOF, successful use of white balance (most of the time). Even more than that, I like many of these photos for their sentimental values. Looking at them makes me happy. Because in the end, it’s nice to have fame and glory for outstanding photographs, but it’s nicer to re-live all the fine moments in your life. This is something I’m pleased to have remembered this past week.
 Playback show |
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 Yarkon bridge |
So I’ll stop before this will get unbearable for whoever reads this. Don’t worry, I’m still looking for my perfect photo. But I am thankful for my new camera in helping me get a step closer in the right direction.
Lucille
Lucille
Sorry for adding a cell-phone picture. Hoping to add decent photos soon enough…
So this is my new (used) Canon EOS 350D:
- 8MP produced from a 22.2 x 14.8 mm CMOS sensor (full details in the link above)
- 18-55mm Canon kit lens (minimum aperture is f/3.5), with UV filter
- 70-300mm Sigma lens (minimum aperture is f/5) with macro and a UV filter
- Nice bag, and an insufficient 1gb card
Why did I get this model? After several weeks of going over 2nd hand online ads, I set my maximum budget to 2000 NIS. Hoping to get change when possible. I can’t quite say why, but I payed more attention to the Canon ads rather than the Nikon ones. Perhaps because Canon sounds more powerful? I’ve been told that people hardly migrate from one camp to the other. So am I to shoot with a Canon my entire life? Time will tell. For the moment I’m just so excited about all the new features I’m guessing even a simpler model would have done the job for me. But the excitement would have ended sooner when I had reached the limit of the camera.
Bottom line, I’ll upgrade this camera at some point (should I pursue this direction of course). This model scored high on many digital cameras web sites. It’s not the first model of a series. There was a 300D, and models range up to 500D. What’s improved in the latter models? Mainly the total mega pixels (15 instead of 8), higher ISO range (extendable to 12800 instead of my 1600), bigger screen and HD video. Yep, it’s better, but I can’t really say that I need all that. And all the annoying things in the 300D were fixed in the 350D. Hoorah!
Get a second hand camera. Yes, the frustration almost drove me to buying a new one. Unless it’s easily affordable by you. And then sell me your old one…