Today I went out with my new camera, a Canon 500D to replace the 400D I’ve used for the past two years. Not a lot to report, to be honest, but the larger screen is nice. And my nose doesn’t press the buttons as much when I turn the camera sideways. Actually, the rearranging of the buttons caught me out a few times, but the refinements do make sense.
Oh, there’s a HD movie recording function on the camera too, but I didn’t try it out yet.
What I did try is the new wide angle lens:
Yup, a shot in a mirror. The wide angle makes a HUGE difference. 10mm vs 18mm, my previous widest angle, doesn’t sound like much, but it really is.
So, I went to the park to see if I could work the whole “big sky” look I like so much:
Not the most interesting shot, I must admit, but it’s a start. I think I’m going to have to read some “how to” guides on getting the most out of the lens.
On the way I met some friends who were with a friend who had, quite possibly, the cutest dog ever. It’s a crossbreed puppy of some variety. I tried out the “hold out the camera without looking, click, and hope the wide angle means you catch everything you want in the frame” technique. It almost worked:
If the tail hadn’t been cropped off by the edge of the frame, this would have been a real nice photo. A minute later a group of small girls walked past. They couldn’t resist the puppy, and the puppy couldn’t resist them. I tried the same technique again, and got an interesting (if not very clean) image:
Like I said, I need to work with this lens a whole lot more to find out what I can do, what looks good, and when I need to swap to a mid-range lens instead. But for a first day out, I’m quite happy.