March 2008 Desktop Calendar Wallpaper

This month's calendar is of the views of distant hills in early morning fog.

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Image: Sparrow's Bath

A picture I shot a couple of weeks back. I was sitting next to this puddle, and a bunch of sparrows flew in. They took their time in the puddle taking turns for a dip, and I could take my own sweet time getting a picture.



It has been a while I have shot birds. I must be thankful to them for coming to me at a time when I am not going after them!

Exif: Canon EOS350D, 100-400L at 400mm, 1/500sec, f/8, ISO 200, handheld

To shoot or not to shoot

This is a question that I have been asking a lot to myself lately. And the decision usually has been in favor of not to shoot. In a bit of travelling that I had done during end of last year and beginning of the year, I almost never took the camera out despite having had plenty of opportunities to shoot. The time I would have spent hurrying behind the camera was spent in relishing the experience of the beauty around me.

Yesterday was one such day. I went out camping with a bunch of fellow photographers from the city who were all geared up with tripods and cameras. I did take my camera but had left behind my heavier lens and the tripod. It was a hilltop and we were expecting a beautiful sunrise; it indeed was one. I took a picture of two, but spent hardly anytime with the camera.

The idea was simple - first, I had not seen the place before and wanted to get the feel of it before jumping in with the camera. Second, it was such beautiful morning and I was there for the first time, I did not want to waste it by running around with the camera. The most important third - it was just outside my city and I could go back again and spend all the time just shooting. That means I could indulge in the scenery, while not loosing much by not shooting. It is like having the cake and eating it too!

Here is one of the few shots I made before sunrise, handheld, at very high ISO, which gives and idea of the place.

Canon 17-40 L User Review

If there is one lens with which I have difficulty finding flaws, it is the Canon 17-40L. I have been using it for nearly two years now, and have only good things to say about it. It is a little slow at f/4, but still a great value for the money you pay.


Image from Canon website

Major features

* Fixed length, internal focusing lens
* USM motor
* Full time manual focus(even in AF mode)
* Speed of f/4 at all focal lengths

And to list the advantages of this lens I have seen in the past years of usage

* Instant focusing with USM motor, zero noise
* Sharp images and excellent color rendering
* Ideal wide angle focal range. Digital cameras with 1.6 crop factor still get a decent 27mm wide angle.
* A 77mm filter diameter allows compatibility of filters along with many Canon lenses
* I have found its very close focusing range useful in many occasions

Image Quality

The most valuable of all the above features is the sharpness that the lens delivers. Here is a sample image, shot using 17-40L on a Canon EOS350D mounted on a tripod, using 2 GND filters on the top of the lens.



And shown below is a 100% crop of the image, which gives a clear idea of how sharp the images can turn out with the lens.



To Conclude

The lens can render clear and sharp images. Priced less than half of its counterpart 16-35mm f/2.8L, it is also value for money. Serious landscape photographers who tend to use tripods most of the time would not even worry about the lens being slow at f/4. It is an ideal lens for the landscape photographer who is looking to make good quality images.

Two lens strategy

Almost everyone of us goes through a stage where we run after gears, wishing for lens after lens. And most of the time drooling never stops. In my early days of photography when I just had kit lenses, I was looking forward to owning L series lenses. I managed to upgrade, not as additional equipment along with the existing, but as replacement. I replaced a 28-80 with a 17-40L and 70-300 with a 100-400L.

But wish list continued to exist. Those were the days when I was hoping to specialize in wildlife, and was looking up to a 600mm lens, never being able to afford one. And then I also thought of landscape and people photography which made me wish for a 70-200. I did not have the money for either of them, so never ended up buying them.

In the last two years, some changes in my pattern of photography has made me re-think of this wish list. I have never gone very serious with wildlife photography, which means I could eliminate a 600mm lens from my list. A 70-200 would be nice, since my current focus rests between people and landscapes, and the lens serves both the purposes. The 70-200 would also have served a few advantages over a 100-400 - (a) It is far more sharper (b) It is light and compact. But I still had some inclinations to shoot wildlife, which means I wanted to keep the 100-400. That would mean having three lenses.

I thought of this for a while, and then made this 2 lens strategy, which I decided to follow - 'At any point of time, I will own no more than 2 lenses'. That means if I acquire something new, I must give up an existing one. This would help me from acquiring too much and not using any of them efficiently enough, just making room for fungus. Besides, travelling with too many lenses makes little sense, and when you do carry all lenses, it is a pain to keep changing them.

I have stuck to having 2 lenses for almost 2 years now, and I devised to the rule a year ago and have adhered to it. The result - there are a few occasions when I did feel the need for a 70-200, but the need was never compelling, and the 100-400 suited as a fairly good alternative. Besides that, I now mange both people and a little bit of bird photography on the 100-400. It has been a worthy compromise against messing up with too many lenses. May be if I someday decide that I will never go back to shooting birds, I could give up on 100-400 and replace it with a 70-200. But I will definitely stick to two lens strategy.

An image for the occasion

Here in Bangalore, like everywhere else, media and the market forces that cash in from the event are all noisy about Valentines day. While they are it, I thought of the best possible picture from my archives that would fit for the day, and this is what I could think of. Taken at Yosemite National Park, USA with a point and shoot film camera - my first days with photography.

February 2008 Desktop Calendar Wallpaper

February 2008 calendar is a happy bird breaking into a song :)

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