Benji Mast’s Photoblog

I will apologize for the formating. I am experimenting with a new piece of software that is supposed to convert RTF to HTML, and it looks horrible, I know.

• •Dust Reduction

• •I never learned how to properly clean the sensor properly on my XT, and it was incredibly irritating. Especially when I wanted a long shutter speed during the day, and would go with small apertures. Now I can shoot at whatever f/stop I jolly-well please with no regrets and no weeks spent with the clone tool.

• •14-Bit Images

• •I have not completely explored the practical advantages of this. However on the picture in this post, I felt like I definitely had fewer artifacts when I was processing the 40D’s RAW file, than the XT. One disadvantages is that RAW files are almost twice as large, running a 12-15 mb instead of 6-8.5 mb in spite of the fact that I’m only getting 2 more megapixels. And no, Nic, I don’t even want to hear how many bits your Hasselblad/Leaf produces.

• •6.5 Frames-per-second

• •Have only really used this once, but man, oh man does it sound awesome.

• •Live-View LCD

• •…with the ability to zoom in to fine tune focus. This feature can also be used while tethered to a laptop. This is huge for shooting still life or products when focus has to be dead-on. I can even adjust focus with my laptop, which gives me total, I mean total, focus control.

• •3.0h Live-View LCD

• •‘Nuff said

• •Faster Menu System

• •More intutive, meant for pros

• •Faster Auto-Focus

• •Cable-release port

• •Don’t have a cable release yet, but if I would have had one on my XT I would have avoided some embarrassment. I was shooting the tidal basin in D.C. The cherry blossoms were out and so were the D-SLR owners. I sniffed at everyone carrying around their tripods and new cameras and seemed to be struggling to get results as I peaked over there shoulders. Too much gear for that set of brains I would say to myself.

• • I set up my own tripod and begin to shoot close to a lady, whom I sized up as being some two or three levels below me in photographic expertise. She was using a cable release and so I made some comment about it and begin to drop hints that I would like to try it. My hints found their mark, but she wondered, “Will it fit your camera?”; I smiled inwardly at her naive question and said, “Oh yeah, we both have Canons, it should work fine.”

• •You’ve already probably guessed how this story ends. After trying desperately to plug it into every where I saw a socket on my camera, and some places I didn’t, I gave it back to the lady who was some five or six levels above me in photographic skill and expertise.

• •Jaw-Dropping gorgeous

• •Girl-friends, who needs ‘em?

The following picture was taken with my super-cool new camera and my cool new Canon software to create this 16 min exposure at f/11 for sharpness and ISO 100 for smoothness. I felt it to be underexposed so I pulled it about 1.5 stops pp, which would have been deadly for my XT files, espcially with such a long exposure, but with 14 bit RAW files and overall impressive noise performance I think it looks quite nice.

Edit: For clarification, the white circular streaks are stars which appear to move over time because of the Earth’s rotation on its axis. The moon is rising to the right of the frame, hence the lightness. One of my family members was unsure at first what some of these details were and recommended a clarification. I think that the star in the center is the North Star. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Dance Across the Night