29 December, 2006
Investment
Hawk
Originally uploaded by Planet Vicster.
In case you were wondering what all of the fuss was about, I was (impatiently) awaiting my new Canon Digital Rebel XTi. So far, I'm really enjoying it (and, yes, I've taken several shots of the furkids which will all show up here sooner or later).
I also got the "cheap" 70-300mm lens, which, I'm discovering, is good for getting shots like this gorgeous hawk, and also for some portraiture, where I don't want to be right in someone's face.
I haven't completely sold my soul to digital. In fact, it was quite a struggle deciding between this system and getting a medium format film camera. What the decision came down to was Time and Space. To deal with a medium format system, I'd have to get a scanner that can deal with medium format negatives. Cost-wise, it was a push (a new digital rig + a couple of lenses vs. a medium format + a scanner), but I don't have any space to keep a scanner, and it would take so much more time than simply plugging the camera into a USB port and downloading.
The XTi is the 10-megapixel model, so, I think, it's a good investment for me in that I can get some decent, large-sized prints from my image files and it won't feel technologically obsolete in six months.
I'm really happy with the 70-300mm zoom lens. Considering it's the "cheap" model (not the fancy-schmancy USM-IS-go-and-fetch-my-tea-for-me one), it really gets some nice sharp images. I haven't played around with the 18-55mm "kit" lens, yet, so I don't have an opinion one way or the other on that other than it's very very light.
The only hiccup I've had was not being able to run the "Digital Photo Professional" program that comes with the camera that processes RAW files into either TIFF or JPG. It seems that any and all of the RAW conversion programs I looked at required a minimum of 512k RAM and this old eMac has but 256k. However, I discovered a way to process RAW images through the Image Browser that came on the same CD, so I can procrastinate on the RAM stick a little bit longer.
Labels: Canon, Digital Rebel XTi, impatience is my virtue, photography
~~ victoria on 9:26 PM ~~ 0 comments
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