Photography

From Fraser Speirs Wiki

Contents 1 Interests 2 Camera Equipment 2.1 Canon EOS 350D 2.2 Canon BG-E3 battery grip 2.3 Canon EF-S 18-55mm 2.4 Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 2.5 Canon EF 28-135mm IS 2.6 Canon EF 100-300mm 3 Bag 3.1 LowePro CompuDaypack

Interests

My main interests in photography are urban and architecture images.

Camera Equipment

I'm a bit of a Canon fanboy (although I'm that kind of fanboy who also has a good explanation). Here's what I lug around:

Canon EOS 350D

I bought this camera in August 2005 and it's been all over the world with me on my travels. I'm really very pleased with it. My only major complaint is that I keep activating the self-timer with my nose (I shoot left-eyed), so it would be nice if that control wasn't on the back. Otherwise, it's just a great camera. Some people find the body too small for their hands, but I don't have much of a problem. I acquired the battery grip a couple of months after I got the camera, and that really makes the camera feel more substantial and better-balanced when using longer or heavier lenses.

• Reviews:
  • DP Review
  • Imaging Resource

Canon BG-E3 battery grip

The Canon battery grip for the 350D is a fairly pricey add-on, but I think it's worth it. The handling of the camera in both orientations is improved, but the real win is in the ability to load two battery packs. With two batteries, I basically never think about charging my camera. I think, in a year of use, I've seen the half-battery indicator maybe twice. More than once, I've gone on a week's trip without packing my charger. Great add-on.

Canon EF-S 18-55mm

The Canon EF-S 18-55mm lens is the basic kit lens for the 350D. It's really not that great, except that it's the widest-angle lens I currently own. It suffers terribly from chromatic aberration, and occasionally from flare, but can produce some decent results in the correct conditions.

• Examples with this lens:
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/fraserspeirs/126908911
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/fraserspeirs/144661884

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8

What can be said about the 50mm f/1.8 lens that hasn't been said? It's about the cheapest f/1.8 lens you can buy. The build quality isn't great, and it uses the cheapest kind of DC motor for AF, but the optical quality is just great.

• Examples with this lens:
  • Passion Play Photoset.

Canon EF 28-135mm IS

This is my newest lens, and my first with Canon's Image Stabilizer technology. I'm mostly delighted with it - it's optically excellent at all zoom lengths, uses a ring-type USM for excellent AF speed and is well-built. My only complaint is that it uses a double-barrel zoom mechanism which, on my example at least, leaves room for a bit of play in the movement of the front element.

For most purposes, this is my everyday lens. On the 1.6x cropped 350D, the 28mm end isn't quite as wide as one would like, but that's why Canon sells a 10-22mm lens, I suppose.

• Examples With This Lens
  • KLM Boeing 747
  • China Airlines Boeing 747
  • Switzerland Photoset

Canon EF 100-300mm

On a camera like the 350D, with its 1.6x crop factor, this lens turns into a 160-480mm lens. The long end gives some great reach into scenes that you otherwise wouldn't be able to fill the frame with. Unfortunately, the lens isn't very good optically at 300mm. It's very soft, which leaves you a lot of sharpening work to do afterwards.

• Examples with this lens:
  • Emirates A330 Landing at Glasgow
  • Duomo and Tower, Pisa

Bag

I'm a bit of a bag fetishist. I used to use a Spire Meta but, when I acquired the SLR kit, I realised I was leaving it at home far too often, just because of the hassle of carrying a camera bag and a laptop bag. So I started looking for one that would do both. It turns out that there are tons of laptop-capable camera bags. These kind of bags devote 90% of their volume to camera gear and just a slim section to the laptop. Great for photographers-who-also-carry-a-laptop. Unfortunately, I'm a programmer-who-also-carries-an-SLR and there aren't so many bags that split their capacity more evenly between photo and tech.

LowePro CompuDaypack

The LowePro CompuDaypack is about the only backpack bag I've so far found that provides a decent space for both a laptop, its accessories and some camera gear. I typically carry:

• Apple MacBook
• Various chargers and cables
• Portable hard drive
• EOS 350D with battery grip and usually the 28-135mm IS lens mounted
• Canon 100-300mm lens
• Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens

I'm really happy with this bag, except for a couple of small things. Firstly, the bottom of the bag is the camera part, so the underneath is flat and square. It sits nicely on its own, but the fabric at the bottom corners is starting to fray a little. It could use a thin rubber boot over the whole bottom of the bag. Secondly, there's a zip-pocket that covers the inside front of the bag. I find this pocket a bit unstructured and would be much more useful separated into two or three compartments. Otherwise, great bag.