After a pretty feeble haul of Christmas presents (really, a Shiatsu massage machine?) I felt compelled to bolster my horde of gadgets… by buying a new camera!
I agonised over whether I should buy a Canon 5D Mk II — a beast of a camera — or save £1500 and buy the 450D. It didn’t help that the mid-range option (the 50D) was thoroughly lackluster and had almost no features that I might require. A higher shooting speed (6fps), hooray. So, I went with the 450D which was still a huge upgrade over my old camera.
Surely it’s more about the lenses anyway; the camera is just a light-tight box at the end of the day. In fact, it seems you need incredibly good glass to make the most out of the new digital cameras with massive 15 megapixel sensors. At that kind of resolution you discover all sorts of chromatic aberration that wasn’t otherwise visible.
(Talking of lenses, did you see the new 10-22mm Canon EF-S lens? It seems to beat every existing ultra-wide-angle lens at… well, just about everything. I guess designing glass to focus on anything less than a 35mm frame must be child’s play for the Canon engineers.)
Anyway, with the new resolving power granted upon me by the 450D, I can finally create HDR photos, like you see below. I’ll try to keep the abuse of Photoshop fairly low though, I promise.
Liz
Jan 2, 2009
How are you finding the 45OD? Not too small for your hands?
sebastian
Jan 2, 2009
It’s 450, not 45O… !
It’s almost identical to the 300D, which I’ve been using exclusively (for travel/walking around) for years now. It’s like… the same weight, and about 1-2mm shorter in the handgrip.
Thing is, the 5D grip isn’t big enough to accommodate my last finger anyway… and you probably know what an extra 250g does when you’re walking around with a zoom lens
sebastian
Jan 2, 2009
(It is pretty small though, yes! But nothing I can do about that… I’ve mastered bracing with it. Steady-hands Sebby they call me.)