The Day I Changed Allegiance

Today was quite a day. My little “new camera savings fund” filled up and with my wife’s blessing, I headed to the camera store to make a purchase. But, to keep you guessing, here’s a little history.

For several years I used Minolta equipment. I started photography with my parent’s SRT-101. I wore it out and moved to my Grandmother’s SRT-101. I wore it out and moved to a Minolta X-700. I had many lenses with this camera, including a 100-500mm zoom. All the while knowing one day… One day I would own a Canon camera. I knew all the pros used Canon. I heard ad nauseum how great Canon lenses were. I heard everything I needed to hear to know that Canon was in my future. Well, one day it happened. The day I brought home my first Canon film camera (an Elan 7N) I had a smile on my face from ear to ear! Yes, I had achieved what few other people could say. I owned a Canon camera! (With a 50mm f/1.8 lens.) No one could stop me now! Move over Superman! Out of the way Batman! What? You need a photograph of the underside of thick blackberries under a forest canopy taken at noon on a 90 degree blue sky day at 300′ elevation and everything needs to be perfectly exposed? No sweat. I’ll just grab my Canon (did I say, Canon?) camera and get to work.

Fast forward to 2007 and I bit on a Canon 40D. I’ll bet 90 percent of the images I now put on my website (www.robpleasphotography.com) for display are from the Canon 40D. With an ‘L’ series lens it has produced some great 16 x 24 images for one of my clients. My 40D was pretty quick too at 6.5 frames per second (FPS). I changed the focusing screen to a grid pattern, had custom functions set and had quite a setup. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t that happy with it. Don’t get me wrong, the 40D is such a great camera that it is still considered an industry standard. Many current cameras are judged against the 40D. Remember from previous posts that I packed around a 4×5 for years and shot Fuji Velvia ISO 50 on both the 4×5 and 35mm. The 40D was pretty grainy above ISO 200. I always shot at ISO 100, sometimes ISO 200, rarely ISO 400, and never ISO 800 or 1600. It was just to grainy for fine art prints. Crop cameras aren’t my favorite either. I loved it for wildlife. The magnification factor gave my lenses a little edge that I didn’t have on film. For scenics, it drove me up the wall. And the 40D just didn’t stand a chance against Velvia or Provia 400X. I found I was carrying two cameras when hiking. My camera bag alone weighed in at 23 lbs. After six hours of hiking, I would hurt for several days. It was just too heavy for my small frame.

If you’ve stuck with me this far, I know you are saying “Ok Rob. That’s great. You like film and you like the 40D, but then you don’t like the 40D. Get to the point. What did you buy?”

Tell ‘ya in a second.

I sold my Canon 40D earlier this year and went back to film. I printed out spec. sheets for all of the Canon models, new and old. The 1ds Mark II, the 1D Mark III and Mark IV, the 7D, the 50D, the 5D and 5D Mark II and even the 1V film camera. I wanted a full-frame sensor with a high FPS and lots of auto focus points. With Canon I had to compromise. I could get a fast frame rate and crop sensor or full-frame with few auto focus points and low FPS.

It was then that I discovered Nikon. I checked out the D3 specifications and was surprised at how everything I wanted was included in the camera.. Two weeks later I was actually convinced that I should leave Canon and go the Nikon route. I was then told to look at Nikon’s D700 since it was basically a newer D3. I was so concerned about making the switch I gave myself a headache on the way to the camera store. An hour and a half later, I did it. I brought home a Nikon D700 with a couple accessories.

Do I like it? Yes. Here’s a sample picture with a Nikon 50mm f1.4 lens.

Winter Wonderland Photos

These are the images that go along the Winter Photography Wonderland article.

Winter Photography Wonderland

Moose Kept A Walking

I just got back from an extended trip to Eastern Washington. What an incredible time! I was staying right at the base of the mountains and every day was either snowshoeing to different areas or snowmobiling to get into higher elevations and then snowshoeing from there. I had the usual range of whether, from a spectacularly sunny day, fog so thick I couldn’t see more than 75 feet in front of me, too gray overcast skies. On one of the gray days I was out snowshoeing up the side of a mountain. I was out for about 3 1/2 hours. To the left of me was a deep gully with a creek running through it. As I walked straight ahead my peripheral vision caught movement of something large. I turned to the left and the single large object became three large objects. I was a bit startled as I was hiking in cougar and bear country. The three animals are as large as horses and I realized quickly that I was looking at moose. The birch trees they were in were so thick that it took me 20 minutes of snowshoeing to even get across the gully to where they were. With all of that fooling around, you would expect any moose worth its salt to say “heck with this” and take off. Wouldn’t you know it? They were there when I got there. I suppose I was 50 yards from them when I took the first few pictures. Then I moved in 15 feet or so and took another set of pictures. I kept this up and I was able to make the photo that you see below. Unfortunately, when I moved in closer they left. I chased them around the mountain for about an hour and a half but the trees were just too thick. I couldn’t get them out into the open.

Enjoy the photo!

Moose in Birch

Canon Chart

Let’s Get Started!

Hi!

Welcome to Rob Pleas Photography– The Blog. Don’t forget to check out www.robpleasphotography.com or http://www.flickr.com/photos/robpleasphotography/.

In case you are wondering, my last name is pronounced ‘Place’. I’m pretty easy to find on the Internet so I’ll keep my bio brief. I’ve been exposed to photography all my life, as my grandmother was a professional portrait photographer and my parents always had cameras kicking around. I graduated from the New York Institute of photography and have been shooting professionally for the last couple years. Though my first love is the 4 x 5 view camera I find nowadays I’m shooting 35mm film and even more so digital.

For the past few weeks I’ve been trying to decide if my digital and film cameras were holding me back or could it possibly be… me! This is led to quite a bit of research about many of the digital cameras in the Canon lineup, as Canon is what I shoot, and even included a rental of Canon’s EOS 1V film camera. The one V. was their top-of-the-line pro-film camera. I’m including a chart that I made up that I think will be helpful if any of you are going to the same issues I did. Once again, it only covers Canon models. The items you will see listed were those that were important to me. I was surprised in reading the specs of each camera how little the sales people told me when I would go to the various camera stores. Two cameras in particular were said to be perfect matches for me but after reading their detailed specifications, I found they weren’t appropriate for my needs. The old expression “buyer beware” rings true again though fortunately I have yet to buy. My research has shown me that I probably won’t be upgrading my cameras for quite awhile. I hope the chart is useful to you.

I can’t help but think some of you are wondering why on earth I’m still shooting film. Simple. I get better results with film for nighttime photography. The results aren’t even close. Film is far superior. My digital camera has a crop sensor and film gives me the advantage of the full frame “sensor” and spectacular landscapes. However, I wouldn’t be without my digital camera for bird and wildlife photography. The rather humorous caveat to the digital images is that most can be processed to look superior to the slides I shoot, with the possible exception of the nighttime images. Those tend to take a lot of work.

I look forward to some interesting discussions with you. I’m not trying to start yet another film versus digital thread. In my life they both have a purpose. Feel free to write in with your thoughts. I’ll continue to post. All I ask is that you keep it family-friendly.

Until next time– happy shooting!

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