Tag Archives: canon

DSLRs

With the way the world is going, it’s too convenient to shoot photos on your smartphone. Charging your DSLR battery pack(s), making sure the memory cards are cleared, and lugging around a backpack full of lenses is a lot of work.

I have an old Canon 40D camera with both EF (full frame / crop) & EF-S (crop only) lenses. I’ll be traveling in a few months and I want something nicer than my iPhone for taking photos.

It seems like the two main options are: get a crop DSLR body or get a full frame DSLR body. Staying within Canon’s ecosystem would be the most convenient. Leaving Canon opens up a can of worms (Nikon, Sony, Pentax, etc?).

If I were to just suck it up, it seems like the answer would be to get a new full frame DSLR & L glass (24-70 EF lens). But I’m leaning towards getting some relatively cheap new crop DSLR body and just make do with what I have (as an economical choice).

With a camera, I care about low light sensitivity (ISO grain) and maybe shutter speed. I don’t care for video options as I don’t intend on shooting and editing movies.

Even though the standalone camera market seems to be dwindling, the big lenses & big image sensors of DSLRs will always provide photography that mobile phones cannot.

An Evening with Vincent Laforet – NYC Talk

Earlier this month, I attended a talk at Adorama in NYC that provided great context to Vincent Laforet‘s career. As a photographer who saw the writing on the wall, Vincent transitioned his career from still photography into motion picture.

IMG_7559

Vincent’s presentation was statistics heavy and illustrated the amount of content (image and video) that gets produced every day. The future holds even more consumer made content that reduces the role of big media as tastemakers. Also, viewer attention span keeps going down over time.

When Reverie came out in 2008, I assumed that Canon reached out to him to produce it. The reality is that Vincent was at Canon and happened to come across the 5d mk2 prototype. Vincent was rejected several times, but Canon eventually let him borrow it. And history was made.

Vincent said that he takes most (95%) of his photos on his iPhone. As someone who shot for the NYTimes and is a Canon Explorer of Light, I’m surprised he doesn’t use his DSLRs more often. It makes sense since convenience is king, and we always have our phones.

Another point that was brought up during the talk was Constant Photography. Instead of taking THE photo at THE right moment, you could just take a film of ALL the moments and cherry pick the photo that you want. Why would you need a photographer when you have a videographer that does both?

What I got out of Vincent’s talk was that passion and being open to change are important. Vincent could have kept working as a photographer, but changing to a Director/DP was a risky move that paid off in the long run. As a new DP, he doesn’t know everything, but he is able to hire great people with complimentary skills and get it done.

Uniqlo X Canon

Uniqlo rocks. I went there to return some stuff and ended up buying a graphic T while browsing. They have T-shirt collaborations with brands (such as MGS) that constantly cycle.

Naruto statue

While I enjoyed Naruto several years ago, I’m too old to be wearing Konoha merch.

EOS DSLR Body T-Shirt

They currently have a Corporate Collaboration theme for T-shirts. This includes brands like Canon, IBM, and Meiji.

EOS DSLR Parts T-Shirt

Not the sharpest shot, but this shows DSLR parts.

I didn’t end up buying either Canon shirt, even though Canon rocks. Maybe they could come out with a T-Shirt that has the DSLR (with a 70-200 please) & lens strap superimposed on it. Sort of like those tie shirts that are kind of cool, but not really.

Monster Hunter T-Shirt

As I mentioned, I picked up a T-shirt. I got this because it looks badass and I’d wear it in public. Plus, the games sell a metric ton in Japan, which is a plus.

 

Team EF Lens Mount

via flickr @kevinv033

Bloomberg:

In the market for cameras with interchangeable lens, or single lens reflex cameras, Canon controlled 44.5 percent of the market, followed by Nikon with 29.8 percent and Sony with 11.9 percent, according to the data.

The good news is that Canon is #winning, even if Apple is really winning?

The bad news is that prices are going up:

There’s lots of reports of price increases across the globe. This was bound to happen as retailers were and are still unsure what stock levels are going to be like.