Picked up my new toy:
RF 100-500mm
I’ll go for a walk to take some pictures of swans and ducks before the bad weather rolls in.
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First impressions: Really nice although of course it’s a lens for sunny weather. You will need to push the ISO when you’re taking pictures out at 500mm F7.1 but image quality is excellent. I have some pretty decent shots of some ducks, a blue tit and there were two hunters hunting rabbits with a ferret and hawks. I’ve managed to get some nice shots of a hawk sitting in tree.
Will post them in the Where are you Photos 2022 thread:
More coming soon™
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Wild ride to read that technique. Stupidly brilliant - as in, sounds stupid - is brilliant. Or perhaps better summed up by my personal catch phrase:
“It’s not cheating, I’m just smarter than you!” 
I have larger hands and long fingers, so if the FF bodies are a tad larger, then I’ll likely end up in the same boat.
Had to look this up - interesting project!
So with the R10 it is mostly set up by default. The front of the body has a AF/MF toggle switch with a DOF preview button in the middle. The switch is there for lenses without a switch of their own.
If the lens has a switch, that takes over from the body switch.
In either case, when set to AF and full-time RF control ring MF set to on, it should work with compatible lenses - and it seems to also enable the focus ring to do that instead, if the lens has one - as with the 100-400.
Turns out the 50mm is not on the supported list for control ring MF though:
https://cam.start.canon/en/H001/supplement_0060.html
Not sure if this function exists on the R5 and other bodies not on the list (perhaps they have their own list?)
Ok, I am learning to work with the histogram myself and turn it on more often now.
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It’s a very common technique for macro photography. Even at apertures like F11 or F16 the depth of field is so shallow that unless you’re in a studio with lights, a tripod and a static subject, you can’t precisely control your focal plane, especially with living insects. So the way to get these pictures is to get your focal plane as close as possible and then fire a burst while slowly moving the camera towards your subject. Takes a little practice but with modern cameras and their high frame rates it has become much easier to get good results.
Yes the FF bodies are a little larger. I’d recommend to try them in a camera store before you buy. The R6/R6 II are a little bit smaller than the R5 but it’s not a big difference.
Yep, you need a lens that has what Canon calls the control ring.
My local stores now have the new R6 Mk II in stock, which means the pricing is out.
R6 Mk II Body - $3300
Kit with the 24-105 f4-f7.1 stm for $3600
Drop $200 on either for the R6 Mk I.
R5 locally is $5300 with a sale at the moment for $150 off.
I have been looking at some of the math of how lenses work and this comment came in to mind. It makes sense since the sensor size is the same but the pixel count is way less, so larger pixels on the R6 will mean better low light performance.
| Body | Resolution | Pixel Size | Sensor |
|---|---|---|---|
| R10 | 24.2MP | Approx. 3.72 µm square | APSC 22.3 x 14.9 mm |
| RP | 26.2MP | Approx. 5.76 µm square | FF 35.9 x 24mm |
| R6 Mk II | 24.2MP | Approx. 6.00 µm square | FF 35.9 x 24mm |
| R5 | 45.0MP | Approx. 4.40 µm square | FF 35.9 x 24mm |
Threw the RP in just because it was the same price bracket as the R10. Looks like 18% larger pixels going R10 → R5, or 61% larger for R10 → R6, but no resolution improvement. Guess there is not a market for something in the middle like 30-36MP?
Ah future speculations…
The differences are quite negligible unless you’re constantly taking pictures at ISO12800 and higher
Modern cameras are amazing pieces of technology.
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@Derbysieger any tips for metering against snow?
In my bird shots, I ended up with a lot of grey-ish snow which I fixed in Lightroom.
Some of the photos I managed to get nicely in camera, but I don’t have that nailed down for a consistent result.
The only way to get reliably consistent results is to go full manual. Any automatic mode will result in at least some variation. TV mode with auto ISO and exposure compensation can be a good compromise for wildlife though, especially with rapidly changing lighting conditions.
If you shoot RAW you don’t need to worry about white balance as that can always be fixed in your editing software of choice but you can not fix blown highlights or black shadows.
If you shoot .jpg make sure you nail the white balance as well.
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What an awesome thread. I’ve got some reading to do lads.
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Same @chipwich !
I came looking to see if Mudspike had a photography section or thread, I shot over Christmas with this and I’m in love.
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Ah, the AE-1. What a camera. In college I shot for the yearbook staff and newspaper. I had a black bodied AE-1 with an 85 1.8 that lived under my right armpit. A friend of mine was shooting for the Miami Herald and he taught me how to always have it with you and how to carry. With a sun hood mounted and the lens facing aft, you didn’t need a cap to protect it and could swing it up one-handed to shoot candids in an instant. I went with him on some of his newspaper gigs and they could get dicey at times. Walking into bars in rough parts of town at night and covering a KKK rally were two that came to mind. Charlie was fearless. Seeing that AE-1 sparked a lot of memories. I need to dig up those photos, 99% are B&W.
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Very cool.
I played with a DSLR quite a bit in high school and early college, but it walked away at a car show many years ago and I’ve just used an iPhone since.
It’s amazing what a joy shooting with a camera can be, and the discipline required for film adds a nice touch for someone accustomed to blasting away with endless iCloud storage.
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My first ‘proper’ camera was a Zenit SLR that I bought in the early 80’s. Even had “Made in USSR” stamped on the case 
Man that thing was bullet proof, the number of times that I dropped it, but other than a few chips and scratches in the paint it worked as good as new… and it took half decent photos.
It looks like I will be in the market for a new camera. My trusty Nikon D50 that I have had since 2004 has died (I’m guessing the sensor/CCD).
Took some landscape shots the other day and this is the result - I haven’t played with these at all that is what was saved to the card!
Kinda cool as abstract art, but not exactly what I am after from a camera.
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Red footed booby (hehe) chasing a flying fish. Canon Eos 6D with EF 300mm f/4L, handheld from deck of ship. It’s not the best photo, but it’s great to create memories of cool things!
I’m still amazed at modern cameras - I remember photography on a Nikon F film camera with a 50mm f/1.8 manual focus lens, and going through having to get photos developed after a trip and finding out what you actually photographed (blur for me, half the time!)
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Yeah, my old Zenit wasn’t exactly a good camera for snapshots. I had to use the built in light meter to get the required f-stop for the selected shutter speed (or vice versa) + manual focus meant I had to plan every shot.
Yes modern digital cameras let me take dozens or hundreds of shots so I end up with maybe 4 or 5 keepers. But it makes me ‘lazy’ as a photographer in the same way a modern sports bike made me a lazy rider.
Heaps of power and big brakes meant I could turn in a decent lap time at a track day, but my technique sucked. Jump on one of my brothers little 250cc strokers and ‘re-learn’ that you have to be smooth, keep your revs and corner speed up, etc to do a decent lap and it is far more rewarding, harder work to turn in a similar time to my litre class bike, but more rewarding.
That is why I would love to go back to 35mm wet film, but I can’t afford it and even if I could there isn’t anywhere that I could get it processed without having to send the film in the mail.
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Agreed on both small bikes and film.
Tangential to this thread, but for twisties I adore “underpowered” bikes that make you work.
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Doesn’t one of the new Fujifilm cameras emulate a 35? Has a viewer which displays the film emulator (Kodachrome, Fijichrome, PlusX, TriX, Ilford, etc) you are using and recommends small flash memory to limit storage size. Range finder format. Sounded interesting. Pricey though.
As far as processing it yourself, it’s not difficult, but I think that I’ve spent enough years inhaling developer, stop, and fix to not want more.
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Back in the day, we had to develop our own black and white film, so yeah those smells are ingrained for me as well
I will also never forget the time (on the training course where, among other skills, we were taught how to use a dark room) we had a fellow student who insisted that it was OK to load the film into the developer canister as long as the red light was on. to prove a point we all said “yeah sure go ahead”. He had to sit a re-test
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I feel your pain. I may be getting confused between the Nikon F and the Pentax, but I remember that one of them had a light meter and it was the best invention ever (until the batteries leaked and destroyed it 
).
I know what you mean about blatting away and taking loads of shots to get one or two that work, but in all honesty that’s good enough for the family Google Photos album, and with the job that allows me to afford the camera (not to mention the flight sims 
) I don’t have time to become a really good photographer, and I’m comfortable with that.
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