Gear

• Canon 50D
• Canon 10d (backup)
• Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 OS
• Sigma 20mm f/1.8
• Canon 50mm f/1.8 Mk II
• Canon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
• Canon 70-200mm f/4 L USM
• Speedlight 420EX flash
• Lowepro backpack
• Lowepro Toploader Zoom 50 AW

 

Photography has been something I've been interested since I was a kid.  Back in middle school
I used my dad's Canon AE1, I think that's what it was anyway.  I didn't do much at that time but later in high school when I started getting into biketrials I picked up that camera again, with its same battery no less and shot with it for the next 5 years.  Upon graduating from college I was given a Canon Elan 7e.  The Elan was my first exposure (you bet pun intended) to a fully automatic camera and it was great.  For some reason I had trouble with focusing the manual with the speed required for biketrials.  The quick focusing on the Elan was a great help.
 
Basically since I got into photography I have been digitizing the photographs to publish on the web.  First I was borrowing flatbed scanners until I got a Canon USB scanner which was pretty nice for my budget in college.  I moved on to a Minolta slide/negative scanner which was worlds better in terms of sharpness, color, exposure range, in short--better in every way.  That worked well for three or four years until I realized that it was time to buy a digital SLR.
 
I had purchased a super cheap point and shoot digital back in 2000 or so.  I quickly saw its usefulness in that the feedback loop was nearly instant.  However I have no idea how I put up with the quality.  It was just terrible.  About that time I realized that quality versus quantity was more important.  When I got back to my film camera I used this ethos and as a result you'll see much less photos per photo event.  Anyways back to my digital SLR.
 
I was burning tons of time and to a much lesser extent money on film and processing for my photographic needs.  I was tired of the workflow.  Take the shot, wait till the roll was finished (don't want to "waste" pro quality film!), develop, wait for it to scan, clean the stupid amount of dust from the scan, color correct and finally post to the web.  It was exhausting.  Excluding developing it took on order of 60 minutes a frame for something that didn't need much tweaking.
 
I had been asked on many occasions why I didn't switch to digital.  There were two primary reasons.

1. megapixels
2. magnification factor

My slide/negative scanner would scan a roughly 12 megapixel image.  In 2007 that size was available only from pro quality cameras.  Sizes were quickly approaching that by consumer point and shoots though.  The second reason was the magnification factor.  Much of my trials work is using wide angle lenses.   I'd lose much of that wide angle by switching to digital.
Somewhat impulsively I purchased a used Canon 10D from Ebay.  I have been very happy with it so far.  

 

So it has been 4 years since I purchased my 10D and it has been going well.  Focusing has been starting to have problems.  Once in a while it will just cycle through the full range, before finding the proper point.  Perhaps there is some dirt or grit in the focusing screen.  I've put it through a lot: sand, water, and extreme cold.  I've taken a lot of good pictures with it.  And lots of bad ones.  I've made close to 8 or 9 thousand shutter actuations.  

 

For the last year or so I've been seriously thinking of upgrading to a used 5D.  It is a great camera and with its full frame sensor I would get my 20mm back instead of it getting cropped up to 36mm.  I figured that there is no reason to upgrade later in the year.  I will be travelling to Norway in late May and it would be a shame to pick up a new body after that trip.  So after looking around on the net for used bodies I finally got one.  A 50D.  

 

That's right, 50D, its not a typo.  While doing my research I learned that basically the Canon line, bodies and lenses, have aligned itself so the high end products, 1D and EF lenses, are full frame.  Unfortunately I can't afford many of those really nice EF lenses.  Nor would like lugging them up cliffs either.  

 

The other portions of the market, middle and low-end, all are cropped sensors.  Luckily lenses have been catching up and there are good quality, reasonably priced wide angles out there.  The bodies in the mid-range, or prosumer as its called, are very close in functionality to the 5D.  In fact surpassing it in many cases.  

 

My search brought me to decide between a 7D and 50D.  The major differences that I was concerned with were, lack of video on 50D, a slower frame rate, and price.  What I decided was that video was not worth nearly twice the price.  I like video and I take more and more with my phone, but if I had really high quality video it would just be one more thing to occupy my time trying to get "just right."  

 

Thus far the 50D has been great.  My first real use of the camera was during a backpacking trip a few weeks ago.  I love the quality of the camera and my new main lens, the Sigma 17-70mm.  It isn't quite a true 20mm uncropped, but it is close.  I think the Sigma 10-20mm lens my be in my future next year.  In the mean time, I'll just borrow my roommate's!