Longwatcher
28th of April 2003 (Mon), 11:00
This is just to get it out of my system. It is a bit ramblely.
This weekend, some friends held a ritual ceremony at my house and a different friend of the participants had been asked to take the pictures. I was kind of dissapointed that they had not asked me, but it worked out anyway.
Before the ceremony, the other photographer was complaining about how long the digital cameras took to take a shot from the time you press the shutter release until the picture was taken. He liked his digital, but usually used film. At that time not fully realizing what he was talking about, I said yes it does seem to take awhile, but the 10D was almost imperceptable compared to the D60, although it could still be faster. He was mentioning people turning their head, I was saying yes they can. He was apparently thinking all the way to the side or more, while I was thinking an inch or two, which ruins my shot.
Later during the ceremony, he asked me to take a picture as he wanted to participate in a portion of it, so I agreed to use his camera to take the picture. I can't remember what kind of camera it was but I thought I must be doing something wrong since the shutter would not go off. After noticeing me looking at the camera in puzzlement and asking if he had it in ready to shoot mode, he said you had to hold the shutter button down for awhile. I did this and it finally went off after a couple of seconds (at least it seemed that long).
After that I asked if I could use my camera, everyone agreed and I went and snapped off a series of about 6 shots in the time his camera took one. The look on his face was priceless. On top of everything else, my 550EX flash was very cooperative and recharged very quickly for those shots (I love fresh batteries).
Although I don't know what kind of camera his digital was other then P&S type. his film camera is Nikon, so score one for the Canon crowd.
This also reminds me of a discussion I had with Barbara Nitke, a photographer whos work I admire and is also in the process of challenging portions of the CDA (stupid US law). Although I am the one who got her into digital photography a couple years ago (different long story involving my Kodak DC4800 and her without a camera), she had gone Nikon route based on her Nikon glass. When I showed off my D60, she seemed surprised that the autofocus seemed to take so long. Her comment was "I had always heard that Canon autofocused faster. At that point I did not have any "L" glass, but I had thought the focus to be pretty quick at that time (compared to my DC4800), but mentioned that maybe it was the IS. I only had the 28-135 IS and the 75-300IS at the time.
When a couple months later I got my 16-35L, I saw a huge speed increase in autofocus over the the non-"L" lenses. Also, I have since learned that the two IS lenses I have are amoung the slowest to autofocus of all Canon lenses. So the next time I see her, I hope to show her the big difference as my 50/f1.4 and 16-35L are really fast. [note: someone let me know if I will still be embarrassed versus professional Nikon camera and glass with those two lenses on the 10D]
What the above goes to show is that sometimes experience and perception are the most important factors. I had thought my lenses were fast to autofocus (until I got the 16-35L) and she thought the were really slow. My friend thought ALL digitals were slow on the shutter, but I impressed him; whereas, I think the 10D is still slower then I would like, but faster then the D60; which in turn was faster then the DC4800. In both, it was a case of our experiences affecting how we percieved things.
Thanks for reading my rambling.
This weekend, some friends held a ritual ceremony at my house and a different friend of the participants had been asked to take the pictures. I was kind of dissapointed that they had not asked me, but it worked out anyway.
Before the ceremony, the other photographer was complaining about how long the digital cameras took to take a shot from the time you press the shutter release until the picture was taken. He liked his digital, but usually used film. At that time not fully realizing what he was talking about, I said yes it does seem to take awhile, but the 10D was almost imperceptable compared to the D60, although it could still be faster. He was mentioning people turning their head, I was saying yes they can. He was apparently thinking all the way to the side or more, while I was thinking an inch or two, which ruins my shot.
Later during the ceremony, he asked me to take a picture as he wanted to participate in a portion of it, so I agreed to use his camera to take the picture. I can't remember what kind of camera it was but I thought I must be doing something wrong since the shutter would not go off. After noticeing me looking at the camera in puzzlement and asking if he had it in ready to shoot mode, he said you had to hold the shutter button down for awhile. I did this and it finally went off after a couple of seconds (at least it seemed that long).
After that I asked if I could use my camera, everyone agreed and I went and snapped off a series of about 6 shots in the time his camera took one. The look on his face was priceless. On top of everything else, my 550EX flash was very cooperative and recharged very quickly for those shots (I love fresh batteries).
Although I don't know what kind of camera his digital was other then P&S type. his film camera is Nikon, so score one for the Canon crowd.
This also reminds me of a discussion I had with Barbara Nitke, a photographer whos work I admire and is also in the process of challenging portions of the CDA (stupid US law). Although I am the one who got her into digital photography a couple years ago (different long story involving my Kodak DC4800 and her without a camera), she had gone Nikon route based on her Nikon glass. When I showed off my D60, she seemed surprised that the autofocus seemed to take so long. Her comment was "I had always heard that Canon autofocused faster. At that point I did not have any "L" glass, but I had thought the focus to be pretty quick at that time (compared to my DC4800), but mentioned that maybe it was the IS. I only had the 28-135 IS and the 75-300IS at the time.
When a couple months later I got my 16-35L, I saw a huge speed increase in autofocus over the the non-"L" lenses. Also, I have since learned that the two IS lenses I have are amoung the slowest to autofocus of all Canon lenses. So the next time I see her, I hope to show her the big difference as my 50/f1.4 and 16-35L are really fast. [note: someone let me know if I will still be embarrassed versus professional Nikon camera and glass with those two lenses on the 10D]
What the above goes to show is that sometimes experience and perception are the most important factors. I had thought my lenses were fast to autofocus (until I got the 16-35L) and she thought the were really slow. My friend thought ALL digitals were slow on the shutter, but I impressed him; whereas, I think the 10D is still slower then I would like, but faster then the D60; which in turn was faster then the DC4800. In both, it was a case of our experiences affecting how we percieved things.
Thanks for reading my rambling.