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After many years of amateur 35mm shooting with mainly Pentax and Minolta film cameras I bought a Minolta Dimage 7i shortly after its release, as my first digital camera. It only wetted my appetite and when the Canon 300D (USA Digital Rebel) was released I immediately acquired it.
The 300D really fascinated me and I spend most of my time with the camera trying to understand the mysteries of digital photography.
Owing to the fact that I am a gadget maniac the appearance of the Mark II really put my head in a spin. The Mark II is an engineering masterpiece - a real piece of art!
It feels as if it was cut out of a solid piece of steel and your hand fits on it perfectly. Owing to the fact that it is heavy and when using a heavy lens like the 24-70mm L it is even heavier, it still balances beautifully in your right hand with the left supporting the lens. It is water and dust resistant but not waterproof, very fast, 8.2MPx pictures, and the battery lasts for at least 2000 shots. (An additional battery is of vital importance).
It uses two 32-bit RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) processors - one for focussing and the other for the lens drive. The other 1 Series cameras only uses one RISC processor but the latest 1Ds Mk II also uses two. When taking consecutive shots at 8.2MPx each it pumps 69 MByte of data per second to its buffer which must be very big. That data is then written almost just as fast to the CF card (depending on the speed of the CF and SD cards in the camera) which results in a 43 frame burst at 100 ISO in good light! Do not even think about buying smaller than 1 GByte CF or SD cards because a card can become full very fast!
It is this ability of the Mark II that ensured that it is today regarded as the de facto standard in digital photography. Just look at all the white lenses and Mark II's at the Athens Olympics! Tests have proved that by lowering the JPEG quality to about 5 on a scale of 10, and using the Medium 2 image size, a burst of 10 frames per second can be achieved at a resolution of 2544 x 1696 pixels!!
But that is just for the record.
Many heated words have been written on the different forums about the so called softness of the Mark II's photos.
Sad to say, many of those words were, according to my opinion, maliciously spread by either opponents of Canon or just plain ignorant people who do not read the manuals or other articles on the camera. It is always amazing to see what the authors of these manuals have added to them since we last read it! The Mark II and the 20D can take a photo in either a JPEG or RAW format or BOTH. Tweaking of the sharpness, contrast, tone curve etc., etc., is only applicable to the JPG format when it can be configured to give photos of the same quality/look as normal popular level cameras. The tweaking has got nothing to do with the RAW version of the photo which is RAW – meaning it must be post processed in e.g. PhotoShop to obtain the desired results. The EOS 20D can e.g. be configured to take black and white photos as an attachment to the RAW version of the photo which will be in colour.
However, it must also be realised that post processing cannot rectify a bad photograph or user error. A down-to-earth booklet on practical tips about the use of an EOS DSLR camera was authored by Chuck Westfall, (Director of Technical Marketing Dept. Canon Camera Division) and can be downloaded at the following link:
http://www.photoworkshop.com/canon/EOS_Digital.pdf
I did a lot of reading and research on the internet in general and forums in particular, about the Mark II and after much deliberation I decided to place an order for it. The initial allocation for South Africa was 10 units (!!) and I count myself very lucky indeed to get one of only three designated for Pretoria at that time!
But that was only the body. There were accessories also - lenses, flashes, tripods, etc., etc. which boiled down to a huge investment as such type of equipment is very expensive here.
As such type of stock is always a problem in South Africa I had to decide well in advance what accessories, lenses, etc., I required for the type of photos I wanted to take and that includes wild life, birds, nature, landscapes, portraits, macro photography and general family snapshots.
I had to decide if I really need a camera that weighs a ton and is capable of taking 8.3 x 8.2MPx frames per second. According to the predominant opinions on Photographic Forums only professional sports/news photographers need that type of performance and camera. I had no intention what-so-ever of becoming a pro but my common sense told me that the speed of the camera can be utilised for more than one type of photo. Portraits immediately sprang to my mind. How many times was a photo ruined because the subject blinked an eye when the shutter was released? The subject moved (children/ babies) - or did not look at the camera when the photo was taken.
Groups, weddings, events, birds in flight, animals, and the list goes on and on. And the worst of all is the fact that some photographs (the majority I should say) could never have been retaken and is lost forever.
One of the main reasons why I decided on the Mark II is my pet subject - macro photography.
Initially I acquired the 100mm f2.8 Macro lens (on the Mark II it becomes a 130mm lens and on the 20D it is a 160mm lens both of which is perfect for macro photography because you don't get to close to the subject) and placed an order for the MT-24EX Dual Macro Flash, the TC-80N3 remote controller and the Angle Finder C. This equipment is essential for serious macro photography and it arrived a few days ago.
As 1:1 macro photography is very tricky especially when there is a breeze or the subject moves and because depth of field is critical, your failure rate is very high. The beauty of the MT-24EX (which two flashes are fully independently adjustable) is the fact that it can also be used as a master/controller in a wireless multiple EX type flash setup which is especially beneficial to macro photography.
The fast frame rate of the Mark II and the 20D multiples the success rate of these types of photos.
During the beginning of September this year my wife and I went on a 6000 km trip from Pretoria to Upington and down the west coast of South Africa to Cape Town and back. The purpose of the trip was to test the Mark II on a real holiday but specially to view the millions of flowers in brilliant colours which usually appear during that time in the semi desert area of Namaqualand and Northern Cape province.
We were unlucky because that area did not receive enough rain and a small amount of flowers already appeared during the last two weeks of August.
During that trip I had to change lenses on the Mark II constantly and at some stage dust entered the lens housing. Fortunately I got rid of the dust by means of a rubber blower but then decided to get an additional camera body to limit constant lens changes and the danger of dust and also to be more versatile. I placed an order for a 20D body and the EFS 17-85mm f4-5.6 IS USM and received the equipment when I returned to Pretoria.
I have taken thousands of photos learning the exposure, bracketing, flash and testing and comparing lenses between the two camera bodies until I got the feeling that I am only beginning to understand the inner secrets of digital photography.
The different crop factors (1.3 versus 1.6) made quite a difference in the behaviour of the different lenses but made the choice of which lens to use on which body under what circumstances much easier.
The Mark II now is always equipped with the 70-300 f4.5-5.6 DO IS zoom lens and it produces brilliant photos. That is my "standard" lens for the Mark II.
The 20D carries the EFS 17-85mm f4-5.6 IS USM, the 17-40mm f4, the 24-70mm f2.8 or the 100-400mm IS USM zoom lens.
My favourite lenses for portraits are either the 50mm f1.4 or the 100mm f2.8 macro lens. I also use the 70-300mm DO lens for normal close-ups (portraits or flowers, etc). For landscapes I use the 35mm f1.4 prime lens or the 17-40mm f4 zoom.
To obtain the correct exposure for a photograph is the essence of photography. On the Mark II when using the "P" mode the camera does all the thinking for you. However even the Mark II's light meter can sometimes be fooled by e.g. the lack of contrast, to much or not enough light when focussed on the wrong part of a scene, etc. According to my opinion it is thus essential for a serious hobbyist to learn how to use manual exposure, or at the least using aperture priority. Aperture priority is actually a sort of idiot mode where you decide what depth of field you require and the shutter speed is adjusted accordingly by the camera.
It is easy to bracket your exposure with the Mark II and also very satisfying when the results are what you intended to achieve. That emphasize the beauty of digital photography - instead of wasting film to see the result after a few days, you can instantly see the result and view the histogram and retake the photo if possible.
Another serious obstacle for me to overcome was and still is White Balance. As there is no consistency about the percentage of grey to be used as a reference point it is utterly confusing. Some experts say 18% is the norm. Others say 13% is better and today I've read about a 50% grey card! The fact that the reference photograph must be retaken every time the light changes add to the confusion. With the Mark II and the 20D even the white balances can be bracketed so it is not such a serious problem any more.
Finally I can just say that if any amateur is serious about his hobby the Mark II is the ultimate tool and a very sound investment for many years to come. Don't listen to the opponents of the Mark II, the 20D and Canon lenses – it is a question of sour grapes!
Why should anybody use a cheap lens on an expensive camera?? It is like equipping a BMW with pirate spare parts! If they cannot afford the real thing stop uttering anti-constructive criticisms of these products. If we take the EFS 17-85mm and the 70-300mm DO lenses as examples - the biggest lot of rubbish ever have been written about these two lenses simply because the moaners cannot afford it or their utterances are just plain malicious.
Both are fantastic lenses, very light and ideal "standard" lenses. What they forget is that the sometimes ignorant and ill informed opinion of a specific person is relative because what is right for him is wrong for you - so do not be influenced - do your own research and follows your own gut feeling and flip the rest!
If I had to listen and believe all that has been written about the equipment I own, I would not have bought anything at all!
Happy shooting!
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