Tools of the Trade
2003. Last updated Oct 2008
I purchased a Canon EOS 1Ds digital SLR in February 2003 <sound of wallet having a heart attack>
While it is unlikely that anyone who spends that sort of money on a camera body is going to say it sucks, I do think it is pretty amazing. The 1Ds is basically a 1V with a full frame digital sensor, and the good and bad stuff from that camera carries over.
Niggles: Why no lithium ion or polymer light weight battery? Why no compact travel charger? Why no LCD review zoom set from the factory? Why no 100% zoom available (you can't tell if you got a really sharp picture until you download it to a PC)? Why can't you change ALL the custom/personal settings via the menus? Why can't the menus be easier to navigate? Why can't it boot up faster? Why firewire and not USB (fixed on the Mk2 versions)? The Canon supplied RAW software is slow and only has three zoom settings. The 1Ds a big heavy lump as hefty as a steel girder (which will be a plus when I drop it). Dust collects on the sensor - one wonders how long it will be until someone comes up with a solution for this... OK, that's enough complaining.
A nasty side effect of the 1Ds is that you'll be disappointed with less-than-perfect lenses and also your technique, as 11mp really shows up focusing errors, speed blur, shallow depth of field and so on.
Long term update mid 2007: Four odd years in, and this thing is still running fine. Its been in stinking hot (40 plus degrees C) and nut-freezing cold (35 degrees below) weather. Its been rained on, dropped onto tiles, dropped face down into snow without a lens attached, been fallen on twice (once resulting in the destruction of a 50mm 1.4 airbag lens) and taken a tumble from the back seat of a rental car while attached to a rented 300mm 2.8 that dislodged the focusing screen. But it still runs. And it still takes great pictures.
The noise at ISOs 400 and higher is annoying, especially when its warm and a few hot pixels appear on long time-exposures of really dark backgrounds. The slow startup from off or snooze is a pain. The massive batteries and charger take up way too much space when travelling and in their mistreated states barely get me through a day, but overall she's a great machine. I'm just waiting for the Mk4 to come out now... :)
In late 2007 I bought a Canon 40D for some reason. OK, partially as a backup camera body for an upcoming China trip, and partially because I couldn't justify shelling out eight grand for a 1Ds Mk3 given that I was about to take six months off work. That being the funding source for all toys of course.
The 40D is obviously a lot smaller and lighter and thus way more portable than the 1Ds, and the pictures seem great with vastly improved noise reduction at higher ISOs. in fact I usually leave the ISO set at 320 unless I need more. It starts up fast, the tiny battery is awesome (even in -35 degree Chinese winter mornings), it has a sensibly sized charger, and the big LCD screen is great as is the image review zoom. Menus and controls are more logical, with the possible exception of exposure compensation to curmudgeonly old me who likes the 'old 1Ds way' of doing it. The high frame rate is potentially useful for non trainy things.
I went to watch a workmate play soccer to test the camera when I got it. OK, the reality is that I went to watch lots of athletic women in short shorts running around. But I did take the two cameras with me. I was surprised to find the AF was much better on the 1Ds - yes, it has 45 sensors vs the 9 on the 40D, but it's also, what, eight? years or so behind in its AF technology as this was lifted from the 1V. Maybe I didn't have the settings dialed in optimally, but the 1Ds seems easier to focus, both in AF and manual (the big viewfinder helps).
A minor niggle is that the knob on the left which is used to select the program mode is pretty easily knocked to another setting, which can provide some 'aaaarrrrk' moments at the last minutes because as well as the obvious things like shutter speed, different groups of programs can have different settings: including ISO and image quality (Raw vs Jpeg) which is kinda important to me... I like to stuff the camera under my jacket in the cold and found this happened quite a bit on one trip .
Unlike most DSLR folks, I'm having to get used to the crop factor of the smaller sized chip. In some ways its a boon - pop the 400 or 300 on and you've got some serious telephoto firepower. At the other end of the scale, I love the 16-35 on the 1Ds when traveling.
After six months, I can say the high ISOs are a boon, but overall image quality still goes to the old bird.
So in summary... still love the 1Ds, but the 40D is growing on me.
Prior to the 1Ds, I bought an EOS 1V camera body in early 2001 <sound of wallet gasping>
Likes - lots of things you can customise (sounds like a gimmick, but for example, it's great being able to AF with one button, then compose and snap with another to avoid those last second AF heartaches), back lit lcd screen, adjustable self timer (for night and model shots in lieu of a cable release), depth of field program and button, 1/8000 shutter speed (now that's a gimmick), water and dust resistant, accurate, quiet and fast AF with manual adjustment even in AF mode, quiet/fast rewind, 100% viewfinder with diopter adjustment, eyepiece shutter to block out light entering from the viewfinder end when your eye isn't there during model and night shots.
Dislikes - Why not 'S' for shutter priority and 'A' for aperture priority mode? Don't like the location of the on/off switch, I hardly ever used the pop up flash on the Nikon, but that would be handy to have at times.
Other than Mum's medieval instamatic Braun, my first real camera was a Pentax SFX... which I should have kept. Unfortunately it was next to impossible to find second hand lenses for it in NZ, so in 1995 I was lured to the dark side and bought a second hand Nikon F601/6006 body from a dodgy camera shop on Auckland's Queen st. The Nikon had a clearer viewfinder, an adjustable self timer and bracketing - which I don't think I actually used now that I think about it. On the other hand, I thought the Pentax did a better job of auto-metering and except for occasional AF spasms, the Pentax 35-70 was sharper than any of the Nikon zooms I owned.
I've seen whacko railfans who carry around three cameras and a dozen lenses... and unfortunately I'm now one of them. Quality vs practically: many photographers love their prime lenses, which is fine if you know your territory, but I travel and like to run around finding new spots and don't always want to lug around a truckload of gear. Quite the balancing act.
This is what I've used over the years to take the pics that appear on this website.
| Canon 2001-
|
EF 24-70 2.8 L | For the price and weight, I took more than a few disappointing pictures with this big lump of a lens. I just couldn't get consistently sharp results. With the 50 covering the middle, 16-35 (or 24) covering wide and 70-210 (or 85) covering mild tele, I sold this big lump in 2005. |
| EF 16-35 2.8 L | I like this one a little better... It's lighter and despite the awful reviews you'll find on the internet, I find my copy more consistent than the 24-70 I had. It seems sharper to me but nowhere near as sharp as the 70-200. 16mm sounds a little extreme but the extra width is very handy for interiors and non-trainy shots. When traveling, the 16-35, 50 and 70-210 does me nicely . | |
| EF 70-200 2.8 L IS and non-IS | An awesome lens. The full monty. Big, heavy, conspicuous and expensive... but super reliable, fast and sharp as a tack. If I had to complain, I'd wish it was lighter, cheaper and had more zoom range. While we're at it, I wish I'd win Lotto and that Elle MacPherson had been my live-in lover in the late 80s. I now have the IS version of this lens and often use the 85 and 135 for trains instead of this, but this is hard to beat the zoom when traveling. | |
| EF 50mm 1.4 | Sweet. Light, sharp and not super expensive (mine's second-hand). What more can you ask for? Bad news, this lens broke my fall and sacrificed itself for the 1Ds and my knees one dark night in China. Written off, new one purchased. What! It doesn't come with a lens shade?! I'm on my third one of these consumable lenses now, and really can't fault it - the sharpest images a few hundred dollars can buy. | |
| EF 1.4x and 2x extenders | Used with the 70-200 and 300/400. The 1.4x is ok, the 2x isn't that sharp and often gives headlight ghosting so is rarely used for trains. | |
| EF 300mm 2.8 L IS and non-IS | Awesome. I rented the IS version a few times on Tehachapi trips. Big, heavy and pricey, but... what an amazing lens. IS is awesome. I now own a second-hand 10 year old non-IS version and slung over your shoulder, it's not bad to travel or hike with. The images are superb. | |
| EF 400mm 5.6L | I know, I know, I should have bought the 2.8, but this was a fifth of the price, bulk and weight. Alas the pics are a fraction of the quality. Reasonably OK for shots of still wildlife, but it is not the sharpest tool in the shed. Don't bother using it with an extender or on anything moving. This doesn't see a lot of use these days. | |
| EF 400mm 2.8 IS L | And I thought the 300 was a big heavy expensive monster. I'm actually a little embarrassed to have bought one of these solid gold diamond encrusted bling bling lenses in a spasm of fiscal irresponsibility, but man, the pictures are awesome. A lower cost alternative in hindsight would have been to have bought 4 crop-bodies and attached them to the 300 2.8... | |
| 24mm 1.4L, 85mm 1.2L, 135mm 2L | Superb, very big, very heavy, very pricey. Not as inflexible as you might think. The 85 and 135 are sharp enough to shave with. The 85, which was purchased second hand in mid 2005, had at least one of its rear elements come off their mounts in Sept 2008 which was somewhat unexpected as I've always babied these lenses. Repaired very well by Canon Professional Services promptly at what I thought was a very reasonable rate. | |
| 50mm 2.5 macro | For train models. It does the job, but the Nikon lens did it better. | |
| EF 28-105 3.5-4.5 II | An all purpose, lightweight, reasonably priced, take it with you, go anywhere zoom. I was pleased with it... before the 1Ds revealed it's quality. Sold. | |
| Nikon
1995-2000
|
35-105 AF | Second hand, a good range for trains |
| 75-200 AF-D | Nice and light, fair quality. | |
| 75-300 AF-ED | Foolish purchase at Amsterdam's airport while going through a "need a longer lens at Tehachapi" phase. Not that sharp and hard to focus. | |
| 28 manual | Dirt cheap second-hand Vivitar. | |
| 55 macro manual | Bought second-hand for model train photography. Goes to f32 and consistently takes sharp pics. Great lens. | |
| Pentax =
1987-1995
|
35-70 AF | Really sharp. Why did I sell that camera again? |
| 70-210 MF | Sigma one touch zoom. | |
| 28-135 MF | Bought second-hand maybe a year before I sold the Pentax. Heavy, MF, slow and had fungus growing in it ("built-in soft-focus"), but I still liked it. This is such a useful range for train pics. | |
| Braun
1981-1987 |
? 35 fixed focus lens | Mum's 1960's instamatic. Horrid fuzzy pics unless the subject was standing still and close to you on a sunny day. She says it still works too. |
I try to use a tripod for just all my shots now - funnily enough, I reckon the value of the tripod is only 25% for stability but 75% for composition. It's great being able to set up for a shot and just pop it when the train is in the right spot. When handholding, its so easy to follow the train a little, cut off the top of that hill, lop off the back of the train and click when the telegraph pole is right in the way. A revelation.
I had a number of small-light-cheap and subsequently broken tripods in my youth for model and night shots. With longer zooms and a realization that a lot of my pictures were not that sharp, I became much more aware of camera shake and bought a Bogen/Manfrotto 3001 in '01 with a 3265 /190D grip/trigger ball head, which I find easier to use single-handed in a hurry than a standard ball head. That whole sentence sounds like it should be censored. Its lightish, almost tall enough and reasonably sturdy while at the same time, not too expensive. The latter bears repeating, as that setup was stolen through an accidentally-left-open rear window on the rental car at Tehachapi once. And I broke a head in China. And I drove over a set of legs in Arizona. What an idiot.
For years I had a little camera bag that was always bulging at the seams and when slung over a shoulder when climbing it would slide around a lot. I looked for a long time for a 'backpack' style bag that could hold a reasonable amount of stuff and have a tripod strapped to it for longer walks. The closest I came to what I wanted was a Lowepro one. It is almost big and comfy enough, but wish it had easier access for lens swaps and maybe a little more room inside. I'm now seriously running out of room in that bag...
I also have a ThinkTank Glass Taxi which takes the 300+TC+body or 400 (at a squeeze). Nice and comfy, and, well, the most inconspicuous way of carting megadollero lenses around .
Before the digital wave swept me asunder, I used Fuji 100 slide film when I could unless I was forced to use Kodak or print film. Its surprisingly hard to find Fuji slide film at stores in the US unless you go to a 'real' camera shop.
Just got an Icom R5 or something which is small and not completely impossible to use. Prior to that I had a Welz scanner for about 8 years which was tiny (about the size of a small pack of cigarettes) and next to impossible to use without the manual as it only had about 2 buttons ("simply press shift-alt-ctrl-fn-9" -what?!) Before that, the Uniden Bearcat was easy to use, but was about the size of a brick and had a built-in rechargeable battery pack, so of course you'd always run out of battery miles from the car and had to do a lot of emergency in-car charging between spots, which killed the batteries. There's nothing like being able to just pop in a fresh pair of AAs in the middle of a field. That sounds rude too.
I hang the little scanner around my neck on a lanyard from a trade show and use a single earpiece that hooks around your ear - much easier to listen to than the crappy speaker and good when driving, as the single earphone allows you to hear important driving noises (such as the radio and people honking and cursing at you).
| Sunscreen | - you'll burn quick when the long wait is on! |
| Straw hat | - as above |
| Bug repellant | - a must on Tehachapi and NZ West Coast trips. |
| Cable release | - for tele shots, usually use the self timer for night shots and models |
| Travel pack of tissues | - for allergy season and for other emergencies that I won't detail... |
| Scanner handbook/cheatsheet | - told you it was hard to use. |
| Frequencies list | - in case your scanner reboots |
| Spare film (before digital) | - I never take enough and can never get the sort I want at the local shops |
| Spare batteries | - scanner/camera. |
| Band aids | - damn those barbed wire fences |
| Swiss army knife tool (pre 9/11) | - constantly amazed how useful this was. |
| Pens, paper | - of course |
I used to carry a mini torch around if it was likely that night shots would be had so I could see what I was doing, but the Canon has a backlight (as it bloody well should for that price).
Maps, mags and books can be helpful for photo spot ideas and to pass the time.