Year 2007 and 2008

[10.07.2008] Ooops!

No updates for a long time, over two years to be exact. I have been, ummm, otherwise engaged.

Not that there has been lots to tell until recently. I was happy to photograph with the 10D and battery grip. I did not make any major purchases during blog break, only 1 GB and 4 GB CF cards and USB 2 card reader, all from Sandisk.

I have mostly photographed during spring, summer and fall. Camera was actually totally out of use for 6 months after last september. When trackday season starts the camera comes out again :)

This spring I tried something new which I had planned to do for few years (yes yes, I am slow). There was ADEX 2008 air combat exercise in my area which I went to photograph. Alongside finnish F-18's flew danish F-16's and french Mirage 2000's. RAF Tornados and Luftwaffe F-4 Phantoms were located further north to Kuopio. I really wanted to see Tornados and Phantoms but I could not arrange time to visit the base. Oh well.

Photographing fast jet fighters is quite challenging, especially if you want something else than standard side and belly shots. I mostly used 300 mm f4 IS L + 1.4x combo but I could have used longer objective. 10D worked ok most of the time but small number of AF points (7) and small buffer cost me some missed opportunities.

For a first time in long time I started to think about upgrading camera and optics, afterall I had the 10D already for 3 years. What I primarily needed was better AF system and larger buffer capacity.

After few days I came to conclusion that perhaps the best investments would be Canon 1D Mark II, Canon EF 2x II extender and Canon EF 300 mm f2.8 IS L, all used as usual. With 1D I could use 2x extender and retain AF functionality with both of my compatible lenses which is good but on the other hand 1D Mark II has crop factor of 1.3 instead of 1.6 of 10D. Some you win, some you lose I guess.

So, after unusually short time I went to action and acquired the extender which I found after few days locally. Few weeks after that I found 1D Mark II on local camera shop, after few days of considering I bought it. Now I'm only missing the lens but it seems that it will be some time before I can afford it.

As for my trusty 10D, I put it on sale with 3 batteries and battery grip for 290€ but there was very little interest. I decided to keep it as spare in case something happens to 1D. 200€ is well below amount I would give away a working digital 6 megapixel SLR!

Now I have few weeks of 1D use behind me and I'm quite satisfied. UI is quite different because it is designed to prevent accidentally changing camera settings. You usually have to push atleast two buttons simultaneosly or one button and then use the selection wheels. At first it was cumbersome but you get over it pretty quickly.

I started experimenting with RAW since Canon's Digital Photo Professional software allows lens aberration corrections etc. And converting RAW files to JPEG's with batch processing was smaller hassle than I anticipated.

I have been thinking getting lenses with larger aperture. I used 1D in church few days back and f4 really is not wide enough, even on sunny weather and ISO up to 800. Problem is that if you want really large apertures you have to go prime and they can be expensive, especially L's.