[John Bennett]

Well I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
Your sites one of, if not the only, that caters to both anglers and photographers. and I’ve purused 100s if not 1,000s of sites looking for the unique blend. I haven’t even found a similiar combination for hunting or backbacking.

Couple that with good membership ( real names is a huge plus) sprinkled from across the globe for some varying perspectives, species, techniques, locations, etc and it’s a winning combination. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if you get alot of editors and ADs lurking here 🙂

While the “fly fishing” site I particpate on thats home based (

[John Bennett]

Im partial to the Bamboo shot 🙂

[John Bennett]

If you want to avoid buying a lens that might one day be obsolete due to buying a full fram like a 5D or 1D series body you want to buy EF lenses. Lenses with IS are fine, thats the acronym for Image Stabalistion. A number of lenses have that. Its a nice albeit pricey feature, generally it doubles or near double the price. You can buy the 70-200 f4 L for about 600-700, the IS version is about 1,400.00

Heres the list of the EF lenses
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ProductCatIndexAct&fcategoryid=111

Initial lenses.
tough decision that only the buyer can decide. Is it better to buy 3 and cover a range of options vs 1 great lens?

I did both 🙂
I bought the 100-400 L  to go with my Rebel XT. Then the 400 f5.6 and 85 f1.8.
and so on.

But I knew I wanted todo wildlife photography and I wasn’t going to mind being patient to get the rest. Here I am years later and I still havent bought a mid range lens (70-200). Thats probably next late this year or next.

Maybe you can go the first year with the kit 18-55, 50 f1.4 and 100mm f2.8 macro.
While you won’t have much reach you will have from 18 to 100. Two fast lenses ( although the macro is slow to focus) for low light, portraits etc and a macro lens. Cost to buy those two is about $1,100.

Me write?
Lol, not a bloody chance, I’m nowhere near qualified, not even remotely. I know enough to offer some advice to people getting started and in large part its from what I learned. Kind of a been there, done that

No sales person explained to me that Rebels started showing noise above ISO 400, they didnt explain photosites and sensor sizes, and AA filters. Or that AI servo couldnt *reliably* track fast moving subjects, or that Pro Bodies had two chips and on and on and on.

As you learn the camera you’ll learn how to overcome some of that ( Snipe vs Burst), make sure to overexpose a bit to reduce noise and so on and so on.
How many will explain that IS for example does squat for “motion Blur”. But thanks for your hard eanred cash all the same…….:) Yet if you look at many marketing hype example images of IS, VR, Anti shake etc, they show a blurred dog leaping ( no IS ) and a crystal clear dog mid air thanks to IS 🙂

Not earth breaking things and certainly not the be all and end all just things first time buyers often arent aware of. Does everyone need the best of the best? No, and as Bill said any body is a good body and a step up from PnSs. As much as a XSI may not be able to shoot a football game at night, in the rain and get alot of “keepers” (relative term …whats a keeper to a Pro and whats a keeper to a parent are worlds apart) its still going to do alot better than a PnS.

less noise
Less shutter lag
More FPS
Better metering
better predictive focusing
Higher max shutter speeds
and on
and on.
🙂

My point isnt that its a “bad” or incapable body, its that Canon used a Ferrari to promote a Mustang ;). Your going to love what it does and really thats all that matters.

[John Bennett]

Cant really help with where to look for purchases Dusty, I’m a Canuck although I’ve heard nothing but good things about B&H.

With regards to lens compatability and future body purchases the lenses that wont be compatible are any EF-S lenses. Things like the 15-55 kit, the 17/85 IS etc. There are dozens of lenses for you to choose from that will go from body to body as you update at some future point.

If you want to get some “L” glass than *I* would identify which type of photography is the most important to me and plan accordingly.

meaning: If WA stuff is important than I’d look to get a 17-40 f4, a 24-70 f2.8, a 24/105 f4, a 16-35 f2.8 etc and put off L glass in other areas until down the road.

You dont have to get L glass at every point. Sure you might want to be there one day, but I dont know many people other than 1 or 2 people who could go out and buy the best at every focal range and specilaty applications ( macro, super tele).

If you want fast glass initially you could get a 50mm f1.4 or 85mm f1.8. Neither are L but both are very good. Fast glass is great for low light, narrow DoF, portraits of kids etc. And plan for a 70-200 f4 L or 70-200 f2.8 L for a top line mid range zoom and use the 17-55mm until you upgrade that in a year or two etc.

For example.
You could spend $1,000 to $1,200 on a 70-200 f4 L and 85mm f1.8. Youd have the 18-55 kit, the 85mm F1.8 and the 70-200 f4 L. That kit would give you alot of options from 18 to 200mm and an option for fast glass in the 85mm f1.8

or you could drop $1,500 on a 24-70 f2.8, 24-105 or 70-200 F2.8 (non IS)

etc.

Planning glass purchases can drive you to drink

[John Bennett]

Well, guys, I bought one anyway, despite knowing about this commercial. I decided, after many of your replies and advice from friends, to save the money for an L series lens instead of buying the 40D. Plus, I am thinking that after I get a better grip on all of the gear, I may want a full frame, and with what I have read here lately, we may be seeing one soon if the 5D is replaced/upgraded.

Dusty, don’t sweat it 🙂
The problem with the commercial isn’t that the XSI is bad, imo it’s that they shot it with 1DMKIII and *impiled* by way of not disclosing that fact, that the XSI  is capable of that kind of shooting/picture quality which it’s not in the main.

The best anology I can think of again is cars. Would you be dissapointed with buying a new Mustang? Probably only if your racing it, or comparing it against Ferraris and Porches and Infinitys. With regards to the route you took theres nothing wrong with that either, if you plan to get some L glass. It’s the route I took in fact. Pound for pound glass is probably more important and glass last…..bodies dont.
My first body was a Rebel XT and I bought some L glass. In time when I had the money I bought some ore glass and some more accessorries. Then I moved to the 30D/40D and ultimately the 1D. Others may opt to get the best body they can initially and wait longer for glass purchases. I don’t know thats theres a right/wrong approach, both have their “selling” points. Thats also why I can speak to this with some authority. There isnt a Canon body line I havent owned and shot with and while Canon has added features to each they aren’t about to radically change the inner components.

Starting with noise. All else being equal the larger the sensors the larger the photosites ( doodads that collect the light). The larger the photosites, the less the noise. This is why full frame bodies produce less noise, than 1.3 crop bodies, which in turn produce less noise than 1.6 and 1.7 crop bodies, which in turn produce far less noise than Point and Shoots which have teeny weeny sensors. This is inarguable. Then there are other smaller factors like the strength of the AA filters and so on.

This was shot with the 30D and 85mm @ ISO 1,250

This was shot with the 1DMKIIn and 85mm at ISO 1,600

While both would have had a little noise treatment done in post even at web display resolutions the difference is very noticeable.

Now for the average parent who’s shooting their kids event…Really who cares.. I shoot my daughters gymanastics at ISO 1600 all the time and while theres enough noise that makes printing any large impossible…again who cares. I don’t, nor should you.

That said just remember that that the Rebel Lines noise tolerance is around 400. At 800 there will be noise. The 30/40D I found the tolerance to be ISO 800

This is the Rebel at ISO 800. Even at 800 X 550 you  can see some

**********

On FPS.

The difference between 3.5 fps and 10fps.See the shot of the girl diving for the ball.. With the 1D I got the precise moment when she made contact with the ball. With a Rebel gettting *that* moment is improbalbe. We (humans) dont react fast enough, and theres always some shutter lag. You might get the ball when its 2 feet away, or out of the frame afterwards. It all depends on how fast the action is.
I should add with the 30D I *never* got those shots. The ball was always too far away, or too late after the fact and that was at 5 fps. Nor did it seem able to focus fast enough or stay with the player as they moved from stationary to jumping/diving.

or this one

or these two
image # 2773

image # 2775

The two frames are taken 0.2 seconds apart. With an XSI its extremely unlikely you’d get either. In the time it takes a Rebel to fire two frames a MKIII will have 6. Further given that the MKIII and MKIIN run on two chips vs 1 chip, the one or two frames the Rebel records may and probably wont be in focus. The abilty to “snap to” and track in the case of AI servo is very different and when shooting fast action, fractions of a second matter. Look how much the Rainbow has moved in 1/10th of a second. With and XSI its out and back in the water before the 2nd frame fires.

Thats the problem with highly demanding photogrpahy like sports and action sequences and thus this spot. Its extremely demanding of the hardware and because you have a requirement of “freezing” the action (high Shutter speeds) that means high ISOs in less than ideal light.

Look that those Volley Ball shots which were taken at 1/500th or so and ISO 1,000 +.
Theres still some motiion blur and I daresay as bad as the light is in gym courts its better than what available during night football. They even show sequences shot at night and in (manufactored rain).

Please.

The other thing is things like focus expansion ( a setting only in 1D bodies) for low contrast situations (cough night football cough) and precision calibration (lens to body).

Could have have the done the spot using some other types of photogrpahy? Meaning less “demanding” of hardware stuff…Kids playing a beach, landscape, portraits, etc..
I think they could in which case atleast to me its less an issue that used MKIIIs and made a commercial for the XSI.

Are the shots “impossible”. Depends.

But the likeklyhood of getting a football player running at night or in the rain, diving into the endzone at the critical moment with IQ that good is remote, especially when the moving targets are “close”. Its one thing to capture action at a distance, its quite another to capture action when its in your face and filling the frame.

Theres lots of reasons why MKIIIs are 5 times the price of XSIs and probably not in my lifetime 🙂 The MKIII is *the* premier sports/action body bar none.

Does any of that mean your XSI is “bad”.
Nope

Its just an incredibly misleading and imo underhanded way to promote the XSI

[John Bennett]

Not really Zach except for the odd shot, where I know I want shots with X composistion, Y DoF,

Alot of what I’m doing is composing differently on scene, then reviewing and self critiquing when I get home, trying to find what I like and what I don’t, or what I can change next time around. Sort of a work/self tutorial in progress. This is where my wish to spend 24hrs on river comes in. I only get these chances once every now and then and the desire to make changes, correct what I percieve to be flaws or improve on, has to wait until the next chance whic could be some time.

With regards to fillling the frame/leaving room. I have been trying to leave some room, usually up along one side but sometimes both to allow for typeface. Not really sure where to go with this, theres probably a balance I havent quite put my thumb on yet.

[John Bennett]

Thanks guys.
Aaron I’m still learning myself, I don’t consider myself accomplished and have alot to learn myself from the like of those you mentioned and others.

Time of day does play a large role, you won’t see me “show off” many images taken between 10am and 2pm unless it’s winter months where the sun lower on the horizon throughout the day. I’m still trying to learn that and many other things.

As for discussing, explaining how I shoot things, you get out what you give back and I’ve had lots of help myself from people, if I can help others who are starting to learn then I’m happy to do so. Zachs site is pretty unique in that it offers anglers who also want to take or want to learn photogrpahy seriously. Lots of sites that cater to one or the other but not both.

[John Bennett]

I have an understanding wife Tim. and kids that are old enough now that we ( my wife and I have more free time)

Truth is 95% of my fishing or photogrpahy is done on Sat and Sun mornings. I just push myself hard to get my fixes and squeeze it all in.

Mon_Fri I’m up at 5am, in the office for 7am, home by 6pm, Kids, house or yardwork, bed.

Sat/Sun Im up at 5am, out the door before sunrise, do whichever for a few hours and home by 11am leaving the rest of the day for kids and family.

I think it’s called the rat race 😉

You can get some nice isolation at f3.5 or f4.0 but alot’s going to depend your focal length ( the long the better) and your distance to subject ( the closer the better)

This was shot with my 400mm at f5.6 and 1/25th

So while its not fast glass, in my favor for this type of effct I have a 400mm and I’m close to the subject. Both of those reduced my DoF dramatically (its likekly about 2 inches) the trade off though is reduced field of view.

So if your limited for now to like a 55mm at F3.5 to f.56 and want that kind of effect get as close to the subject as you can (MFD) *and* try to make sure the background (trees/shoreline etc) are farther away rather than right behind the subject.

J

[John Bennett]

Some more shallow depth of field fun.
Hit our Brown Tailwaters with a group of friends for a day of fun and insanity on Friday. I brought my entire kit along, all 40+ pds of it

[John Bennett]

Chad I’m looking at it from the POV of a consumer who knows nothing about Canons Bodies, or any body for that matter. They aren’t going to know any better, let alone Canon has these things called MKIIIs that can shoot acceptable images at ISO 1600..unlike the XSI, have super fast focusing..unlike the XSI, accurate focus trackin (unlike the XSI), 10 fps (unlike the XSI) and so on 🙂 If the XSI was even reasonably capable of those football sequences, don’t you think they’d have used them 🙂

Would Ford use a “Focus” body over a Mustang chasis & engine, and promo a commercial for Ford Focus road trip and likewise call it the ” family journey”?

Its a great spot, but in dire need of a disclaimer and is extremely misleading.

/edit just wanted to add.
I completely see and understand your point. However Canon could have easily changed the tone/direction/cant find it word 🙂 simply by making it a generic Canon “Brand” commercial that didn’t refer to or give the impressoin that is was a promo for a body, which this certainly and atleast to me strongly

[John Bennett]

John I know quite a few MKIII shooters and none of them have had a problem like this. Like the others my inclination might be that its the card(s).

[John Bennett]

Being the father of two girls I can’t honestly say it would make no difference if we instead had a nuclear family but I don’t think so.

My dad was a guide and he had both myself and my sisterr fishing in the bush by age 3. My sister like most girls stopped actively fishing when she discovered shopping, high school cheerleading and boys but still will pick up a rod today 40 yrs later. She just doesn’t make a point of going.

So for myself I’m pretty confident that that sex of my children would have no bearing at all. Id love to have my kids with me and learning to love and appreciate the outdoors the way I do.  Much as my dad, brought my sister and I up.

As a side note all 3 of us now are into archery, my youngest (10) starting coming to the 3D range as well a couple weeks ago with her own compound. She is more the stereotypically girly girl of the two, yet she shows more passion for it than my oldest. Where the oldest loves the outdoors, I doubt she’ll take it as far as hunting. I dont think its in her heart to draw a bead on a Whitetail, but my youngest who isnt as crazy about the outdoors does have it in her ( I think) and I can foresee taking her hunting with me if her budding interest in archery continues.

Just goes to show, as men/fathers…what do we know about girls
😛

[John Bennett]

I think participation by women is growing by leaps and bounds though. There have been some number of women getting into the media.

Kathryn Macoun host “What a catch”
http://www.whatacatch.net

Theres casting for recovery
http://www.womensflyfishing.net/cfr2.htm

And up here in CDA, the national fly fishing mag “Canadian Fly Fisher” has brought April Vokey on board.
http://www.canflyfish.com/2007/about.asp

I’m sure there are many more women making or soon to make their marks on the sport.

As for my wife.
Well she tried some fishing when we first started dating. Didnt much care for it, cared even even less for the black flies and mosquitos :). I’d love it if she took it up and joined me more but that won’t happen.

[John Bennett]

Thanks!

Somewhere theres probably a happy medium that allows for shallow DoF and great blur, in effect isolation of the subject, yet provides for enough field of view without forcing the photo to cut off so much of the angler. So as always its about tradeoffs.

The longer your focal length the shallower your DoF for any given f/stop
The closer you are to your subject, the shallower the dof for any given focal length/f stop.
And the further away your angler and BG is from the subject, the greater the blur to each

So the WAs give you great fields of view but the trade off is greater DoF and thus less isolation.
The fast (f2.8 or faster) mid range zooms/primes give you great isolation, trade off is less field of view

You could do it with PS (Gaussian Blur) but unless your really skilled it tends to be easy to spot and imo makes it worse than the original  and I don’t think an editor would take kindly to it 🙂

Im heading out tomorrow to the Grand for a ful day with a group of guys. I’ll try some more 85mm f1.8s and maybe even experiment with the 180 f3.5 wide open, providing the Browns co-operate :).

J

[John Bennett]

I like it Carter, but one nit I’d say is due to it being a top/down image which for me personally, I find very hard to make work. Whether they are fish/ bugs with macros photography or flowers the top/down images atleast for for me isnt the type of image that jumps out an grabs me.

/edit
you replied was I was typing.
Thanks and hope youd dont mind the additions. Put them up given the topic, mostly so people can see the effects of how changes of focal length have on the background at constant f2.8 and for reference the 85/f1.8

trying to find the balance between DoF/background blur/field of view is a struggle

[John Bennett]

Frankly I don’t know how many ways there are to present them. But without question I go for the shallow DoF shots. I typically take 1 shot at f4 and then goto f2.8 or f1.8 depending on the lens I have mounted.

Drifter Ive never used a super wide angle like a 10-20 or 12-24 but even wide open your not going to get the really heavy blur. DoF/backgroud blur (bokeh)  is a product of your aperature, your focal range and distance to both target and background.

For example and appologies for reusing it but its the only really compressed shot I have online without using macro images :).

85mm at f1.8 roughly at mfd

70mm at f2.8 ( note how even the snout oof and only the eyes in focus) 1/3 front, 2/3 back

59mm at f2.8 entire fish is within the dof and the *gag* bokeh is less prevalent

46mm at f2.8

35mm at f2.8

I’m still experimenting and trying to find my goto settings and dont know if Ive found the perfect balance yet between getting the DoF I want, the background blur I want, and the angle/field of view I want.  but if your going for the angler being oof you’ll likekly want greater focal range than on a 22mm. I think all else being equal Id reach for the 85mm f1.8 as often as not but I usually have the 24-70mm 2.8 mounted and dont want to change but of the 3 factors using a longer focal length ( at the cost of reduced angle of view) has a greater impact on your effective DoF and resultant background blur.

Im actually considering experimentingwith my 180 f3.5 macro. The DoF on that is super thin and the background blur is superb. The problem with that is the angle of view is so narrow, so probably not very practical. A 50mm f1.4 or f1.2 might be killer but as above in the 46mm at f2.8 you can see that the blur has really fallen off as opposed to the 70mm and 80mm shots

[John Bennett]

Isn’t shopping for bodies and lenses wonderful 🙂

I know anytime I’ve been on the fense about this or that I’ve about driven myself crazy over analysing it. It’s certainly worth looking at Canon. From there I’d try to determine what “kind” of shooting most interest me and then determining if either system has more strengths in that area.

For a simple example.
If I were a wedding/studio photographer I’d probably go Nikon, where flash is important and fast cameras/af arent and if I we’re a sports/wildlife shooter where shooting at high ISOs and fast focusing /fps

[John Bennett]

No they are stocked, theres very little natural reproduction.

Its a good conservation/success story though. The river was largely dead for lack of better terms about 15 years ago. Gist of it is some people noticed the river had all the makings of a great Brown fishery (bottom draw dam, insect life) though after rainbow efforts werent promising and the rest is history.

Litterally from rags to riches in 10-15yrs.

if your curious heres a bit about the history and management plan.
http://www.grandriver.ca/FisheriesManagement/Tailwaterplan.pdf

fyi Zach, even the Becks have been drawn to it
😉

[John Bennett]

Zach,

When is your tour ever going to leave the Peach State?  13 hours is a bit far to drive.

tim

Lol I was thinking the same, except Im thinking Im closer to 5 hr flight.
I know Zach wants to experince Ontarios Blue ribbon River and its only a matter of time before he tempted to spend a week in Ontario 🙂

Trophy Browns, Small Mouth, with Musky and Pike all on 1 river
http://www.grandrivertroutfitters.com/gallery/pagegallery.htm

[John Bennett]

Thanks Zach.
Thats much along the lines I’m thinking and thus far taking. Being patient.
Perhaps it’s best if I use an example, to illustrate.

Some of my Falconry images.
When I sent my first CD to A (hunting/fishing) last year by way as introduction as to who I am, what I like to shoot and as being indicative of what I’m capable of I incuded some of those. The response I got to the CD overall, as you know was fantastic. I know those images were kept and are in their data base for potential use.

The publishing industry being what it is, that might mean this year, next or 2010….There only so many articles they can run in each issue. I guess worded another way, photos supplement the articles and its the articles that determine each issues content and they come first, not the other way around. Meaning photos don’t determine which articles get run when. So until they decide to do a Falconry article, those images wont be used although when they do have room/call for a Falconry article theres a very good chance they’ll run some of them.

But there are other hunting/fishing magazines that might be/probably would be interested in them or who might contact me about them as has already happened with subject matter other than the Falconry images but likewise are already in As hands and kept for *potential* use.

. So its these types of images where I find myself in something of a moral dilema. A hasn’t passed on them, but nor have they sent me a cheque for using them for example in this coming Sept’s issue. I’ll know well in advance whether or not they are purchasing one time useage rights, due to scheduling realities on the publishers end.

So today I know that A has them stored for potential future use but I also know that means no earlier than Sept/Oct. If they were laying out a Falconry article for an August/Sept issue, Id already know those images are spoken for but theres no guarantee they’ll need them before 2010 🙂

I am in no hurry I want to learn to walk before I try running 🙂

J

[Author]

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