OK, So now I understand what people mean when they say that this camera is "a good camera to learn on" what they mean is it has all the features of a normal DSLR but it takes crap photos. OK so maybe I'm exaggerating a little. It is very unforgiving and therefore
difficult to take good photos with. There is a lot to be said for a good solid brigde camera that does a lot of pre-photo procoessing to get the right settings for a good photo. I guess if you can take decent photos with a 350D, all your photos on better cameras will look better!
So to get the feel of this thing I took it to the Chinese New Year celebrations in Manchester's China Town this weekend. Light is always a problem and last Sunday was a particularly dull and drab day. What I did learn off the bat was
take a lens cloth everywhere. All it takes is one spot of rain on that lens of yours and you are buggered!
So I learned about film speed. Essencially if you are running as ISO100 in our lovely north-western weather, you are going to need a tripod, and you don't wanna be setting one of thoes up in the city (unless you are one of 'thoes' people). So to get rid of the blur on my photos, my ISO was firmly stuck on 800 (I did use 1600 in emergencies, but to be honest, there were other problems that were getting in the way).
Taking photos of people on stages is probably something I will be doing a lot, and the New Years celebrations were no exception. Now I am used to using a Fuji FinePix CCD Bridge Camera, wich is wonderfull for working out the required exposure and taking a photo that is 'just right'. The Canon on the other hand is not that helpful. Firstly the camera uses CMOS technology, which had a much smaller dynamic range than the camera I am used to using, so you have to get use to the fact that if the subject is correctly exposed, there will be
no background. This is just a shortcoming in the cameras technology and can not be avoided. The other thing to note is the camera's Metering Mode. By Default Metering mode is set to "Evaluate" I thought it would be OK if this was left as the default... I was Wrong! The photos I took
just managed to balance the subject and the background, but to be honest, the background so so dark as to nearley not exist, and every subject was over exposed! :( Next time I'm out I'll be setting this to "Partial"
A small aside here I feel is important. People with SLR cameras are
annoying.
Just because you have a great big camera does
not give you the right to barge to the front of the stage and take photos. Also, people with telefocal lenses should stand
behind people who don't have cameras at all. It's common curtousy. Also, camera users, be aware of the fact that the "Click" from your SLR is
annoying as hell. So if you wanna go down the route of owning an SLR, and you don't have the common curtosy to take a bridge camera to a public event, please be apologetic and
expect people to stand on your foot out of annoyance.
OK, Rant over with, I can continue discussing this camera. What the 350D
has made me aware of is "special tricks" you can do to gain effects, which would not be possible with a standard point and shoot. Continuous mode is fantastic for taking photos of things like fireworks. Auto Exposure Bracketing is going to be used by me more in the future for HDR shots, and "Tone Mapping" is not a terrible thing for saving a terrible photo (although I'm sure this will be discussed later).
Getting enough light into the 350D without camera shake was very difficult. My 18-55mm lens has "Image Stabilisation" but this really didn't help. The technology in this camera just isn't fantastic. The resolution on the ofther hand is great. Zoomed to 100%, set on it's highest resolution setting, this camera looks great. My 10MP FinePix S5000 looks un-usably grainy zoomed right in, the 350D is just lovely. Althought if I am honest, most photos I will take are not going to be blown up to A3 poster size, so I feel this isn't a massive amount of gain.
In short, this camera will get you some benefits if you would like to spend 60 seconds setting up a shot, but for in the city, where things move quickly, you would be a lot better sticking to a bridge camera, where all the clever bits are done for you, quicker than a human ever could. I'll save my bulky, clunky dSLR for HDR landscape shots, long exposure astro-photography and special effect (long exposure) shots I think, and next time I'm out and about, take my trusty Fuji!
