Using a new lens I got for Christmas

[PZ]

I received a new camera lens for Christmas and have been learning how to use it properly. Today my wife and I needed to go to town for a couple of errands and she convinced me to bring the new lens for a bit of bird photography. I was skeptical about the location but she insisted she had seen hundreds of birds in one of the local bays. She was right.

I set about taking about 50 photos, and when we came home I started post processing them to see what I had. I was stunned to see that I'd managed to capture a bald eagle in a few of the frames.

Here's a link to the album, which only contains three images taken on separate days.

[Dweller_Benthos]

The background image looks interesting but unfortunately that's all that loads.

But that is a nice lens, very versatile range, but yeah, they can get heavy. A tripod is nice to hold it while you're waiting for something to happen and keep it steady while shooting, but also another thing to carry.

[PZ]

My son gave me a carbon fiber Really Right Stuff tripod that is using an Arca Swiss clamping mount so it is very light and easy to mount the heavy camera This is my setup"

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I'm also using a belt/strap clip that also uses the Arca mount:

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Sorry about the album - code was messed up - here's a direct link to the album without the story in case the link is still weird: https://photos.app.goo.gl/F9SG3K37xn28EHjr8

[mandru]

A beautiful lens with really premium features.  On the album page I checked out the review link and was seriously impressed.

It's a bit of an irony that you needed to use your other camera to take a picture of it. 

[PZ]

Thanks mandru, it is fun to be back into photography in a more serious way - this is the first lens I've acquired that is higher end.

It's a bit of an irony that you needed to use your other camera to take a picture of it. 

[PZ]

We took a walk around the block this afternoon. The weather was reasonable and partly sunny. I wanted to check my kit for carrying camera gear to be sure everything worked as anticipated. The test went well so far, and I'm able to carry my drone, GoPro (plus accessories), the heavy camera and several lenses. Safety gear is mounted and I'm using Peak Design clips to hang cameras from my backpack strap or belt, depending on the situation.

While walking I took a few pics to become a bit proficient with the new lens and finally read the complete manual for the 6D body. However, I'm still an amateur and always will be. I liken my camera skills to my gaming skills. 

This is a link to the details of our walk on ztrips.org which should contain the same album: https://www.ztrips.org/wp/blog/2022/02/16/a-walk-around-our-property/

Here's a link to the photo album in case that link doesn't w0#k: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ANz7p6V6qNX3LKuN8

If you check out the albums be sure to click the images to full size because the detail is amazing. 

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah, nice pics, PZ! Amazing the detail you can get these days with modern digital cameras and good lenses. Basically impossible back in the film days because there just wasn't the resolution available except in extreme cases like using an 8x10 or larger camera with fine grain slide film and being REALLY close. RRS tripods are nice and carbon fiber is the way to go. Mine are Manfrotto but have RRS mounting hardware on them as they have the most versatile system that's compatible with what is essentially "standard". RRS makes camera mounting plates for practically any camera that allows fast switching from horizontal to vertical, very handy.

[PZ]

Thanks D_B 

I'm impressed at your knowledge of photography! 

As I read your post I remembered about the old 8x10 format, and at least knew of names like Manfrotto.  I have enjoyed a DSLR since purchasing one many years ago the old Canon Rebel (state of the art at the time). Before that I'd started in digital with a Canon A-80 - primitive by today's standards. However I've enjoyed photography since I was a youngster with an old Olympus 35mm film camera small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. My first SLR was a 35 mm Canon A-1 way back in the early 1980s. I even played around with a darkroom back in the 1960's (my dad had one at w0#k).

I'm curious; how did you get in to photography, and do you shoot (not meaning in games of course  ) these days?

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah I started using my brother's Kodak Instamatic 126 camera back in the 70's after he got bored with it. Used some manual focus Canon and Nikon stuff in high school photography class then a few years after that got a Minolta manual focus film camera (forget exactly the model lol) which I upgraded a few times into the auto focus cameras. The last of which I still have, a Maxxum 7 I think or something similar. So from there I went digital with Minolta again because I had lenses from my film camera that were compatible, then they merged with Konica and then got bought by Sony, so my latest is a Sony Alpha 7 which is now discontinued as Sony isn't making the Alpha mount cameras any more, or even any cameras with a mirror like a traditional SLR, but all mirrorless cameras now. If I were to upgrade from there, I'd probably get a Nikon as my friend has tons of Nikon gear that I could probably borrow and even just buy from him as he's always upgrading and getting rid of old cameras.

I bought a film scanner back in the late 90s when digital cameras weren't quite there yet quality-wise so I could scan film into the computer and make my own prints. Then digital cameras outpaced film and became cheap enough to be a viable alternative and I haven't shot film since.

Mostly I shoot outdoor/landscape/wildlife stuff, waterfalls being a big favorite of mine (you always know where they are and are usually easy to find lol) but also anything interesting during a hike and what not. So bringing a tripod helps a lot especially with waterfalls to get a decent exposure in what is usually a dark and shaded place in the forest. Though, now, technology has even made that not absolutely necessary as there are cameras that will take a rapid set of exposures at various levels and average them together to get the maximum exposure range. Same goes with resolution, some cameras can take a set of pictures at a fast rate and average them to make a higher resolution image that's much larger than the sensor can do by itself.

[PZ]

Camera technology sure has come a long way since "the good 'ol days". I know what you mean about the more recent advances. Canon makes their "R" mirrorless series which is a huge step up. No flapping mirrors means less camera shake when high speed shooting (much faster rate than DSLRs). The resolution is also much better - mine is a bit over 26 megapixels and the new ones are about double that. With no mirrors and double resolution it's no wonder fantastically detailed images are captured.  Expensive bodies though.

[fragger]

Impressive piece of optics there, PZ I really like that tripod too, appears to be pretty rugged as well as cool to look at.

My first SLR was a 35 mm Canon A-1 way back in the early 1980s.

Same here, bud (I bought mine in the late 70s). As a matter of fact I still have it, as well as a few lenses for it and some other bits and pieces. I haven't used it for donkey's years of course, and I know I never will again because I don't think anybody processes 35mm film rolls any more - certainly not around these parts, anyway - but I can't bear to part with it. Sentimental value and all that

I got into photography back in my teens/early 20s, but it's been so long I've forgotten a lot of what I learned. These days the only dedicated camera I have (i.e. not the one on my phone) is an ageing little Olympus with an 8 megapixel screen. I haven't kept up with the advances in digital photography and had no idea that the megapixel count had gotten so high. Nor have I heard about mirrorless SLRs, that's pretty intriguing.

My first digital camera was a Canon (can't remember the model now, a big chunky thing which looked like an SLR but wasn't) which had a whopping 2 MP screen It was around 2000 when I bought that one.

[PZ]

Dang fragger, you're the first person I've met that also has an A1! I do not personally have it because I gave it to the son that gave me the tripod. That A1 was his first SLR. He still fondly keeps it but now uses DSLRs. In fact, he was my inspiration to purchase the 6D

Here he is with his prized possession

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[Dweller_Benthos]

I know one of my old film cameras lost an argument with the ocean in Nova Scotia. It worked for a while after that but eventually some of the linkages in the film transport mechanism corroded from the salt water and froze up. I replaced that with a better manual focus body, which I gave away when I got the current auto-focus body. I should put the batteries in that and power it on just to make sure it still works. Hasn't had film in it in 15 years at least. But the issues getting film developed locally makes using film much more problematic. I never liked sending film out for processing, and always used a local lab I could walk into and talk to the person doing the processing. Those have all been closed around here for probably the same 15 years. Walmart will still process film but they send it out, it gets processed and scanned, they send the scan files back to the local Walmart who burns them on CD and makes a set of inkjet or dye-sub prints of them, you don't get the negatives. I haven't checked if the (used to be) big film processing labs in New York City are still up and running, I would think places like Dale Labs would still be, there are a small niche amount of photographers still using film that would use a lab like that and maybe keep it in business.

[PZ]

Costco formerly developed film, but it has been years since I've seen any film action in their photo center. These days it is just "upload from your camera and we'll make a photo album for you" way of thinking.

[mandru]

The Canon A-1 was a top of the line camera when it was released in April of "78" and was seriously more automated than my Canon TX released in March of "75".  The only automatic feature of the TX was the light meter in the viewfinder that would adjust to show proper exposures balancing f stops, shutter speeds and level of the ASA setting (now it seems called ISO) of the various films being used.

The salesman that sold me the TX said it was a good dependable camera with it's lack of touchy automatic features so with care there was little that could go wrong with it.  But then he turned right around and said it was a popular mountaineers' camera as it was so solid that you could drive nails with it. 

I bought and used the TX for three semesters of an elective black and white photography course when I had a chance (ten or so years) after high school to attend college.  The series of classes intensively covered camera handling, composition, film development, darkroom print development techniques, and countless other little rules of photography that could make or break a good picture.

The assignment where we put a piece of tape over the view finder and had to mentally w0#k out framing, focus, shutter speed, f stop, and available lighting was daunting but fun experience to say the least.

Buying bulk rolls (100 ft) of various speed Kodak films to experiment I used my bulk loader and a lot of reusable roll canisters to kept myself in free film by selling my classmates 36 exposures for $1.00 and refunding 50¢ deposit for the refillable empty roll cans when they were returned.

I always heavily over shot for all of the assignments.  Often using three rolls of film when one would have sufficed.  But I liked having the option of picking what I considered the best of the lot.

I loved those days and used a lot of film.  Nothing Ive done since has been as exciting as going out into Seattle at night to discover under lit areas that would normally be teeming with people but seem eerily abandoned by way of setting my shutter speed to manual and using a cable shutter release with a locking thumb screw to hold the shutter open for exposures sometimes lasting 5 or 6 hours.  The law of reciprocity rules over the world at night. 

Canon Camera Museum uses cookies but under 'Cookie Settings' you can choose "necessary cookies only" to see the camera specs
The TX: https://global.canon/en/c-museum/product/film90.html
The A-1: https://global.canon/en/c-museum/product/film100.html

If you click the Canon Camera Museum heading at the top of these pages you can also access the Canon Lens Hall side of the site as well.