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Re: Sunday, May 28, 2006
The Tamron 18-200 was an impulsive choice, made with a bias for action: the store closed at the end of Saturday, through Monday (today). 6am tomorrow I leave for Copenhagen. And it's not *that* expensive. And I can swap it for something else when I get back: an advantage of a relationship with a local store. Noticed so far: some barrel distortion at full-wide. Close-ups of flowers and stuff -- okay, not great. There were many rejects among these: But I love the range. And it's not big. The Canon zooms were mostly large. Next lens is likely a macro. As for rechargeable batteries, I noticed on the Nikon flash that they last much longer than alkalines. Not sure what's up with the 1.2 volt thing, though, with rechargeale AAs. I bought some 1.5 AAs at the camera store on Saturday for my wife's little Olympus. HUGE difference. The 1.2s barely worked. The 1.5s were still fine after 150 shots. As for the second flash, great idea. And something to condsider once my wife and I both get over the sticker shock on what I've bought so far. As I said in one of those posts, I still need a small camera with a flip-out viewer and good zoom to carry around and shoot candids and stuff. Also for airplane window shots where I can't easily see out the window. All these shots were made through a window only the camera could see out of. This was on a United 777 with a window seat that lacked a window. (Hate those.) So I poked the camera through the corner a window in front or behind me, using the flip and twist viewer to see what was outside. No way to do that with a big SLR like the 30D. Hard to be sneaky with the 30D, too. Noticed that yesterday. Interesting: I hadn't used an SLR since I retired my Minolta setup (two bodies, many lenses, many flashes) which replaced my Pentax setup, which replaced my Nikon F setup. I kept waiting for it to run out of film. You know that straining-motor stuff that happens when you get to the end of a roll? I was waiting for that. Old expectations die hard, even after years away from the environment. BTW, all through the Pentax and Minolta phases I remained a "Nikon guy". I went with the Minoltas mostly because they were best at fast-focusing and letting the user override camera intelligence selectively. And because I was poor and couldn't afford the Nikon alternatives. (Wanted an 8008... saw used ones on sale at the store for $50 or so, I think.) Now, even though I still covet the 5D, I know I'm back in a system that's good, and works, and will have lots of leveragable investments downstream. It's also clear that Canon has moved far ahead of the competition in sensor tech, and the whole image chain. And the UI is so much better that I wonder why other makers don't just copy it outright. Olympus has some very interesting stuff too. And the prices are right. But they're a bit gimmicky, and the can't compete at the SLR end, image-wise. I could see that in my test shots. Automatic white balance was bad. Skin turned orange. A guy at the store told me Canon makes all its own CMOS sensors, but that the CCD sensors used by everybody else are all Sony. True? No time to look it up right now. Hey, thanks again for inspiring (and informing) me at the restaurant about Canon choices. Much appreciated. There are responses to this message:
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