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BIRDS AS ART ON-LINE Bulletin 56 September 29, 2001
BIRDS AS ART and Digital Photography
The Canon EOS 1D
BIRDS AS ART and Digital Photography
I have never made an image with any digital camera but a point and
shoot. I need help to make a barely passable scan of questionable
quality. And I am scared of digital and the changes that it
will bring to my chosen
profession. And rest assured, those changes are coming.
My biggest fear has to do with the cataloguing and storing of
digital images, and of the degree of their acceptance in the
marketplace. I am an old dog, and I will need to learn new
tricks, but not just yet...
Here are some of the things about digital photography that I look
forward to: The ability to check exposure immediately by
viewing the histogram. Immensely reduced film and
processing costs--BIRDS AS ART spends nearly $20,000 annually on
film, processing, and dupes. Immediate gratification. The
seeming ability of digital to handle contrast far better than film.
Not
having to change film after 36 frames.
What I will miss most about using film is the
anticipation of getting back a ton of film from the lab ,and
physically handling the images.
Several folks using digital cameras have traveled with me on BIRDS
AS ART/Instructional Photo-Tours. All are competent photographers.
The first, Pat Price, was years ahead of his time. More recently,
Matt Hagadorn, Bob Ettinger, Tom Fruzinski, and digital expert
Charles Bush have joined me. (Amazingly, Bob and
Tom--both long time and diehard Nikon users--switched
to the Canon EOS (digital) system and D-30 camera bodies before the
introduction of the EOS D1 citing the more accurate exposures
offered by the Canon EOS D-30.)
Digital cameras on IPTs allow for dramatically increased teaching
opportunities. Many of the photographers mentioned above shared
their images with the group for critiquing at lunch and in the
evenings. Suggestions for improvement could be made during the trip.
Several years ago, Pat Price prepared a slide program set to music that
featured the images he made on the Southern California IPT and
showed it on the last night of the trip. He used a digital
projector and even included
photographs that he made on the last afternoon of the trip!
And at Bosque last year, Charles Bush did a "Digital Basics" program
for two of my groups.
The Canon EOS 1D
Canon's first professional digital camera body is a reality; the EOS
1D was introduced several days ago. And while I am the last person
that you would want to ask about anything having to do with digital
photography, I have
taken a look at the specs and the hype and have gleaned the
following:
In j-peg format, the camera is capable of 8 frames per second for 21
frames (provided that the shutter speed is 1/500th of a second or
faster.
Like the EOS 1v and the EOS 3, the EOS 1D will focus down to f/8 so that
f/4 lenses will autofocus with 2X teleconverters.
The multiplier effect is (only) 1.3X. (Most competing digital
cameras feature a 1.6X multiplier effect.) This is somewhat
of a negative for wildlife photographers, but is a big plus for
wide-angle shooters.
The EOS 1D is pretty darned close to being a digital version of the
EOS 1v (upon which its design was based). Nearly all buttons,
dials, and functions
are the same. The EOS 1D is compatible with all EF lenses.
For your surfing pleasure, I offer the links that follow. They were
provided by Canon tech rep David Carlson, freelance photographer
Peter Burian, and Bulletin subscriber Ray Amos. There are
lots of links within
the links, so if you would like to spend a few hours on line, click away.
http://www.canon.co.jp/Imaging/EOS1D/1D-e.html
http://www.usa.canon.com/EOS-1D
http://www.robgalbraith.com
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/canoneos1d/
Please do not call, write, or e-mail me with questions about the EOS
D1, cause I don't know nothing!
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