Tag, You're It!

As a nature, landscape, and wildlife photographer, I have to be aware of the natural world around me. As such, I have learned things about weather, moon phases, migratory patterns, and species than I ever thought I would ever learn, a nice side reward of what I do.

A year and a half ago, my baby daughter was born. As most parents probably know, as she grows I find that I look at the world differently, things that I might have passed over before fascinates her and now they fascinate me. I love taking her outside to explore her world. One of her favorite activities is going to see animals of any kind. As I have said before, there are almost always ducks or geese at Schramm State Recreation Area at any time throughout the year. They get feed by the passer-byers often and we have found ourselves saving up old bread to feed to them when we visit. We have been a few times recently, and when it warms up I expect to be there again.

Because of my evolving view of the world, I felt the title was appropriate for these two ducks. Looking at the world like a child might.

Technical Details:
Canon 5d Mark II, 300 f/4l + 1.4tc, f/7.1, 1/800 sec.
Schramm State Recreation Area, Nebraska

Candid Duck!

Once again I found myself at Schramm testing a new camera while my wife and daughter fed the ducks. I got some cute video on the G10. Anyway, here's the story with the new camera. Due to some unfortunate circumstances with my old 20d which only had a little less than 30,000 shots taken with it - died, two days before the repair plan was to expire. No, I did not hasten it's death, it just happened to have never really been repaired from the previous 4 times I had it in (not a fun experience, mind you). They finally gave up trying to fix and gave me a 50d. I won't say who, but let's say it's a big multi-national chain store that specializes in electronics.

Whenever a new Canon camera comes out (or probably any manufacturer for that matter), there is always fierce arguments on message boards about which is the better camera - the old or the new. And these always include what the poster would have done differently, or how Canon should have done B instead of A, or how Canon is genius. The 50d was no different, and actually received more pounding than any other recently released DSLR. Canonrumors.com even put it as the worst DSLR release of the year (really, that bad?). The price has fallen from $1,300 to $1,050 in less than 3 months (could be the economy too - but that is rarely to blame, I guess) For the most part I don't care. I read because I want to know what's new, but I always reserve judgement until I have it in my hands.

Here's what I think about the 50d after about 100 shots -no, not a thorough evaluation by any means. I like it. There I said it, I like it. The detail is better. The ISO performance? I think better, although I no longer have my 20d to compare, but then again I do have some old photos (30,000?) to look through, and my gut feeling. The features? Live View, Autofocus Adjust, better frame rate, spot metering (yep the 20d didn't have it) etc. Don't get me wrong, I loved my 20d, but the 50d is definitely a step up.

Oh, and the autofocus, better than the 5d Mark II. There was some discussion on this one and it's true. I hate to say it, but it's true, the autofocus on the outside points is faster on the 50d. I guess the posters were right about one thing.

Technical Details:
Canon 50d, 300 f/4l + 1.4tc, f/5.6, 1/400 sec., ISO 3200 - Noise Ninja used (barely)
Schramm State Recreation Area, Nebraska