Alex Wise Photography

Strickland Avenue Falls, Tasmania captured with a Canon 24-70 2.8 L.

A quick shot as I made my way through Sorell to Dodges Ferry for afternoon seascape photographs. The light had been dull and difussed all afternoon from the cloud coverage until a small empty pocket allowed the sun to light this rural setting.

Just something a little different to waterscapes for once.

I’ve been dying to shoot lately but with other commitments I’ve been too busy to drive for hours for sunsets or sunrises. So over the last few days I’ve just been snapping around my little city of Hobart during the day with a Hoya R72 infrared filter then converting to black and white.

Initially I was going to submit these individually but feel they stand better in a group. As I mentioned an infrared filter was used and most shots were of varying 3-7 minute exposures at F11-18.

A user at the Fred Miranda forum just noticed that the Canon China website has posted specifications for the Canon 50D. No doubt this will be taken off their website shortly so the user was kind enough to take a screenshot of the summary and full specification page.

Due to the size of the full specification page (1 meg) click here to open the image

Click here for the summary page (150kb)

1.6x crop
15.1MP
Dust Reduction
Auto Brightness Processing
95% viewfinder .97 magnification
9 point af (All Cross Type)
AF Fine Tuning
ISO 100-12800
6.3 fps (high speed) 3fps (low speed)
Buffer: 16 RAW - 60 JPG - 10 RAW+JPG

Interesting stuff

It appears Canon has made changes to pricing of their lenses in Australia which is good news for us. I had a quick look on Quality Camera Sales and it appears you can buy the Canon 100-400 L IS for $2050 whilst Bhphotovideo you are looking at $1419 (lens) + $63 (shipping) + customs which probably could make it around $1600-1700~. Although this remains marginally cheaper for those who don’t mind getting their lens from overseas, this price change will be great for others wanting the piece of mind from buying here whilst being able to walk out of the shop with the lens at a cheaper price.

There is still quite the difference which is a shame but hopefully it’s a sign of more things to come.

Now where is the 5D mark II!

The Canon 18-55 is a lens which is included in a kit when purchasing a Canon body. I think the new kit has changed and the lens now includes image stabilising which is pretty rad. But anyway, I find alot of people say this lens is rubbish, so much so they talk people out of even getting it with their purchase. For a lens which is only worth around $100 or less, it’s a great little lens. Depending what your doing with it, I can understand its limitations especially in regards to portraiture. For memory it only goes to around F 3.5 which could be better for portraits and ideally if your serious I would get the Canon 50 1.8 and couple that with the kit lens perhaps. But you can still get some ok shots for portraits and it will do fine while learning.

The same can be said with it for landscape photography which does have similar limitations somewhat. While the lens isn’t super wide, 18mm isn’t too bad but once you have a play with something like a 10-12mm you will realise that 8mm makes alot of difference. I’m not going to pretend this is some super lens but really it’s perfect for the amateur just looking to have a play and learn their camera in and out.

From what I learnt with this lens, pop it on a tripod for landscape and dial it up to around F.16 and go nuts. Ignore what others say and use the time to decide which range you use more, if you find you’re shooting around the 18-24 mark often then maybe a ultra wide angle like the Canon 10-22 or the cheaper Sigma alternative is a good option. Perhaps you shoot in the 30-55 range which I would probably recommend a 24-70 or 24-105. I’m only reccomending the expensive Canon lenses because that’s all that I’m familiar with and I have nothing against the more cheaper options but just cant speak first hand.

Here are a couple that I had taken in the past with this little lens