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A night out with the 5D Mk2 and an EF 50 f/1.4
#1

Here it is, Christmas time.... everyone on holidays... having a great time... relaxing... my 5D Mk2 arrives and all I want to do is go out shooting... I should be happy as a fly on poo.... but I'm absolutely snowed under with work with no end in sight (at least until the end of Jan) Sad So I'm stuck inside staring at screens of code instead of playing with photos. *sigh* Oh well..

I was hoping to get out and spend a whole day shooting something (anything), but just haven't had the time.
The best I could manage was to take the 5D2 out to dinner and a club for a friend's birthday last Friday night in Fremantle. My plan was to travel light - so I took just the 5D2 with an EF 50mm f/1.4 lens and 32Gb CF card and nothing else. No other lenses, no flash (and it has no built-in flash), nothing. It's a classic combo (50mm on a FF body) and there's a good reason why - it gives images like no zoom lens can and is a surprisingly versatile focal length.

I didn't take many photos (after all, I was there to have fun), and the ones I took were very much informal snapshots. They are all shot using available light, and many of them could've used a faster shutter speed to really freeze the motion, but I don't really care. They are not scientific camera/lens tests or trying to be great examples of what the camera can do, just some casual reminders of a fun night out and a bit of an introduction to using the camera in some fairly challenging lighting.

[Image: IMG_0611-Edit_ST.jpg]
1.

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2.

[Image: IMG_0634-Edit_ST.jpg]
3.

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4. Little Creatures Brewery in Fremantle.

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5. Lazy Train playing at the Fly By Night Club.

[Image: IMG_0670-Edit_ST.jpg]
6. Posters of previous acts above the bar at the Fly By Night Club.

[Image: IMG_0686-Edit_ST.jpg]
7. Abbe May and The Devil launch their latest album at the Fly By Night Club.

The 6400iso shots clean up better than shown here with some careful noise-reduction, but I didn't see the need.
I also shot some short (1 minute) video clips of the bands we watched to test out the video features, but I won't post them on the internet. Needless to say, the image quality is very impressive (the video frames are every bit as good as shot #7 shown above). I was also impressed with the built-in mic in such a loud environment (but I have an external mic to use whenever I can). Shot #3 above was actually a still photo taken while I was in the middle of shooting a small video clip, and it really shows the quality of the video (which is indistinguishable from shot #3 at this resolution). Unfortunately when shooting moving subjects at wide apertures like this, manual focussing becomes a big issue to keep the subject(s) sharp.

I've still got a lot to learn. But is it so much fun learning! All I need now is time.

Adrian Broughton
My Website: www.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
My Blog: blog.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
You can also visit me on Facebook!
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Einstein.
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#2

Yes, experimenting with new gear is a real hoot. Yours looks to be great. It helps to have a bunch of good looking people to photograph!

Regards.....Dennis
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#3

Interesting............

It really makes you think about how quickly technology changes, and what that'll mean to us as time goes by......

Cave canem
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#4

Last three shots really grab me - hope you can get get through the coding early.

Canon stuff.
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#5

Thanks for the feedback (and moral support) guys. I'm seriously loving the IQ from this camera. I just need the time and opportunity to play some more.

Rufus, like you I wonder how these technological changes will impact on us now and into the future. Now the "megapixel race" is finally dying down, it has been overtaken by the "high ISO race" and (hopefully) the beginning of the "dynamic range race". However unlike the megapixel race, I think advances in high-iso and dynamic range are already opening up entirely new photographic worlds to explore in a similar way that modern macro photography has.
In the hands of people more skilled than myself, the possibilities are incredible. I'm really optimistic about where DSLR development is going at the moment.

Adrian Broughton
My Website: www.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
My Blog: blog.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
You can also visit me on Facebook!
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Einstein.
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#6

It's funny though........... I read a thread on another forum recently, where a fellow was trying to get "a good sharp all-over image, like my compact makes", with his new DSLR.

I've been considering a new lens, and trawling forums and galleries trying to see what's what. In doing so, I've been horrified at the amount of out of focus, and generally awful images. It's worrying.
I feel that as we are given more features, we are also, (well, no. Not anyone here), led to believe that money spent = quality image. Crumbs, if that were true, I'd give up now!
So it's an odd, two edged bone.... No. I mean SWORD, sorry. :o
New possibilities here V new disappointments there.

I dunno. What can we do?
I suppose the answer is, "focus on the art."
Hmmmmmmm.

Cave canem
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#7

I know what you mean Rufus. A lot of people just want a magic bullet and they think more $$$ automatically equals better results. They don't have any desire to understand the process, they just want it to work... and throwing dollars at it should MAKE it work!

A more expensive camera should make me a better photographer.
A more expensive car should make me a better driver.
A more expensive set of pots should make me a better cook.
A more expensive pencil should make me a better artist.
etc...

Remember when Microsoft Frontpage was released and all of a sudden everyone thought they were professional website designers? The web was littered with gazillions of truly awful home-grown Geocities pages from these "professionals" with impossible-to-read text in a million colours over patterned backgrounds that made your eyes bleed, all topped off with animated gif's that induced epileptic seizures.
Thankfully these days you can avoid most of those pages simply by not visiting MySpace Tongue... And hopefully the same maturing process will happen when the general public realise that a bad photo is simply a bad photo, and a DSLR is just as capable of making a dog's breakfast out of any shot as any compact camera is. In some cases more so.

Having said that, although there are many, MANY more rubbish images out here in cyberspace now, there is also a noticable increase in the number of really great images too. The problem is, and has always been, wading through the rubbish to find the gold. As you say, it is a double-edged bone.

What can we do? "Focus on the Art" sounds about right to me. All the knowledge, wisdom and advice is out there for those who go looking for it, and those who don't go looking probably won't listen to advice anyway.

Adrian Broughton
My Website: www.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
My Blog: blog.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
You can also visit me on Facebook!
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Einstein.
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