On The Road with Vicky Lamburn

Following: More EOS 3 Results

Slowly getting this part of my review together but it’s the slowest part as I am shooting a range of subjects, with a range of negative and slide film.

The results from a roll of Ilford Delta 100 have been great. XP2 results have been pretty much on par with what I got from the EOS 5 — the bottom line is that when I got the 3 I was worried that because it was in such good order and condition that it had been sat aside because it was one with the 2/3rd stop underexposing issue. I won’t know for sure until I receive my first slide results back (should be sending a roll of Velvia (50) off next week to find out.)

Still loving the camera and as soon as I have enough experience with it and a range of results I will write this section i.e. the meat of the review.

One thing that does annoy me with the EOS 3 which was not an issue on the 5. Battery status. Technically the EOS 3’s battery meter is better as you flip the hidden panel and press the battery status and it gives you a much more detailed battery level. The EOS 5 had a pretty crappy small battery icon but it was always there on the top deck LCD panel. Battery status does not show on top deck LCD panel of the EOS 3 until the battery button is pressed. Now this becomes an issue for a new user who is so used to things when they go wrong, they go wrong in a devilishly bad way.

On Saturday I was enjoying the beautiful winter sunset on Amberley Mount (near there anyway) when with my slightly problematic Sigma 24mm lens I fired a frame, and nothing – the shot was taken, film did not wind on, lens still had its aperture blades stopped down… Blinking ‘bc’ at me. No matter what I did, swapping lenses, taking battery out etc. and again. I tried everything. The point is I thought I was the first person ever to have a 3rd party lens that could have damaged the camera.

Mad right? It is just my mindset that when things go wrong it’s serious. Most things are when they go wrong for me (on computers they are anyway!) The battery was so far from my mind that when I got home I suddenly had an epithany that I should try replacing the battery. Low and behold!

The downside is that you cannot check the battery level when the battery is actually flat.

From now on I’ll keep a closer eye on the battery level, but not having had the 3 long I don’t know how long a 2CR5 will last. Mind you I have hammered it a bit in the first month of ownership. Even so, minor issue about not having some kind of permanent battery status on the top deck LCD.

That said, the EOS 3 is vastly better than the EOS 5, the feel and heft of it is just bloody great. Sure it’s a pretty heavy camera but I did a good ten miles of walking last weekend and I didn’t find it tiresome. (There again, my 24mm and 50mm primes don’t weigh a great deal!)

I’ve had a right busy week me. It started on Saturday which I will go onto, then Sunday I put together my new wardrobe. On Monday and Tuesday I roamed the seafront with my camera snapping with glee and painted two walls of four of my front room which is good progress. Last night admittedly I was creamed* and tonight I have just sat about watching telly and cleaning up. And now to update my blog.

If you’ve been living under a rock, or just generally not heard any news – you might be aware of a ship called the Ice Prince that sunk off the Dorset coast shedding a lot of its cargo of timber. Long and short of it is that a wood slick was heading east for the English coastline and it so happens that my dear town of Worthing with its five miles of coastline was hit the ‘hardest’ with timber stretching as far as the eye can see and further still.

I had a bit of a ‘heads up’ on this as I put the press release out on the worthing.gov.uk website on Friday (not that I’d be the only one to know of course even at that stage) so I duly headed off down to the seafront Saturday morning. Took a number of snaps before the wood really came in. You only have to do a search on Flickr for Worthing and order it by most recent to see that practically every photo for nearly a week has been of the ‘wood slick’ for photos tagged with Worthing.

As such I got this shot of the pier and a few planks (no not me) that were starting to come in early on Saturday before the beach was closed and well the scenes you can see from Flickr occurred:

Taken on the EOS 3 with XP2 at ISO 400 and the EF 50mm f/1.8 II. Worthing Pier is in the background. I also got rather wet taking this photo. My bottom for one (bending down to angle the tripod’s elevation) and feet the other (my trainers I was wearing have one or fifteen holes…)

A deserted house on the foreshore at West Worthing. This one took a while for me to get right by which time I had it framed and the gate just right (which I didn’t move… Just worked it as-is) an estate agent said to me “You need a hand there?” — I said no no, just taking photos. He thought I was interested in the property (which I was but not to buy) and explained the problem with squatters.

Again taken with the EF 50mm (great lens for the money – nothing basically.)

And finally a Holga-esque inspired homeage to a photo in January ’08’s Black & White Photography magazine:

Worthing Palms

This came out much better than expected. Again the EF 50mm at work. (Eschewed the wide angle the past couple of days.) The light was fading fast but this was a cracking sunset on the foreshore at Worthing and the palms so still in the winter sun with a striking shadow just caught me whilst everyone was fixated on the washed in wood. This was probably taken with a slow 1/10th sec shutter speed if I remember rightly and it was a dead difficult job to get enough DOF while keeping the camera steady (caught without my tripod as I was walking home from work) — in the end the slight blur has given it a fantastic quality. This has been blown up to 16 x 12 and I am pleased as punch with it. For the living room no less.

Check out my Flickr page for more shots and a growing catalogue!

Continuing from part II, I explore the various reasons why I have chosen to stay with film in an increasingly digital age.

Continuing my first impressions of the already impressive EOS 3 I want to explore these impressions a little more but most importantly answer that question of why analogue (film) in a ‘digital age’? Specifically I am referring to 35mm film when I say film given that there are many film formats. My arguments may be different for medium or even large format, but the EOS 3 is a 35mm SLR.

In terms of answering why film in a digital age I believe that the two aren’t mutually exclusive and that they can co-exist and work together. There is however I think a saddening trend that digital is there to replace analogue because digital is better by being digital in its own right. This is not the case, they are both good and both have their strengths. To my mind it’s really about how each of their strengths play into your needs and knowing when to use each Read the rest of this entry »

Some sectors of the blogosphere are dedicated to the rumours of the EOS 450D, 50D and 5D Mk II/3D. So it seems absolutely fitting that I weigh in with my first impressions of a ten year old (1998) 35mm film SLR body. Granted the one I have is not 10 years old but the technology in it is, as is the design.

(The 3D links to a fake image. Lots of give aways in it)

Scanning support on Linux seems to be somewhat better than it was about four years ago where I remember getting very scared reading about something called SANE (which would eventually drive me inSANE…) and in the end it was one of the driving forces that sent me packing my bags back to Windows XP in 2004. After all with SP2; it was pretty neat on my then T23 which if anyone ever had affection for a laptop; I had it for that one. It was a beauty and travelled with me around the world… (..leans on chin dreaming whimsically of far off climbs…)

But it still seems that though things are better; they’re not fantastic. I really need to get hold of average scanner (USB naturally) that would also scan slides and 35mm film. (Yes I own an EOS 5… That’s EOS 5, not 5D…whatdya think I am, rich?) However it seems there are no compatible options; I was hoping the Canon Canoscan 4400F might have something going for it but it doesn’t.

So, in the end I have a few options:

• Install Windows on my desktop (dual boot or something, maybe VirtualBox?) and then purchase said scanner. Cheapest option but not ideal as it’s quite a bulky way to get around the incompatibility equation.
• Purchase a Linux compatible 35mm film/slide scanner such as a Nikon Coolpix dedicated scanner. Expensive although the SCSI ones are cheaper. Downside is that doesn’t scan normal documents.
• Purchase a Digital SLR and sell the EOS 5. Not as bad as it sounds because all my lenses are EF and would work on EOS digital. Downside is that my 24mm lens will have the 1.6 magnification factor (or whatever it is) as will my 28-135mm. Also technically say I got an old 300D body; it would still cost a few hard earned pennies but it could well be worth it. At least I get to keep my two lenses.

So what’s a girl to do? I am really enjoying my photography at the moment and have surprise myself at what I have got out of my crappy w810i’s built in camera. OK it’s not that crappy but it’s digital zoom only, and it’s only centre weighted metering; but it does have some basic exposure settings and when composed well, it gets good results in daylight.

The problem is that the EOS 300D is also a 6.2MP camera which I’m not sure is the resolution I would want. After all; that’s lower than film. I would prefer something like the EOS 350D or even a 400D. But I’m short of about £400 in that case.

For the time being I’ll just take it down to Jessops and get them to slap it onto a CD but these are things to think about. I like my EOS 5, even if it is a bit of tank especially when it’s sat next to something like a 300D; it looks like big daddy has arrived for tea