Sep 242012
 

First Photo with my New (Used) Gear

This is my first shot with the new gear I bought after those bastardos (the police taught me that) robbed me in Italy. I mentioned a little while back that I’d received my insurance check and, subsequently, my camera gear arrived on island. I haven’t really gone into what all I got and have yet to update the My Gear page (I’ve just noted that I should probably get on that). I decided to make a couple of changes though the majority of my gear has remained the same. I decided to stick with my combo of 5d mk ii and 7d camera bodies despite considering the 5d mk iii that has been released recently. In the end it came down to cost. I could buy both the 5d mk ii and 7d camera bodies used, on BH PhotoVideo, for considerably less than the cost of the 5d mk iii alone. On top of cost, I get to keep my two camera setup meaning I’ll have a backup in case I get a little too close to a waterfall or if a baboon steals one and chucks it off a cliff. I replaced my 14mm prime lens as well as my 24mm to 70mm zoom but rather than replace the 70-300mm zoom I had, I switched to  70-200mm lens. It’s just a much faster, better lens. It also seems a lot heavier, which I wasn’t anticipating. Along with it, I’ve bought an extender EF 2x II which increases it’s focal range to 140mm to 400mm.

Today’s Photo: Sunset at Crawl Hill, Bermuda

I spent a day out in St. Georges with my new gear. Unfortunately, for some reason my ISO was set at the max and I didn’t realize, so most of the images are unusable. On the way back the sunset was starting to get interesting so I pulled off onto the railway trail at the bottom of Crawl Hill and took this photo.

The Technical Bits

Camera: Canon 5d Mk II
Lens: EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM
ISO: 100
Exposure: 3.2, 13, 30 at f/18

Taking the Photo: Amongst the little bits I picked up along with my cameras and lenses was a variable neutral density filter. I didn’t actually know that they existed and just stumbled upon them. Rather than carrying numerous ND filters at varying levels you just buy one and twist it to adjust the darkness. It’s pretty cool, but I haven’t really had a chance to test it extensively. I used it for this picture and adjusted it dark enough until I got long enough exposures to totally blur the water.

Processing: Processing this photo was pretty straightforward without many issues. I combined the three exposures using Photomatix and then adjusted contrast and saturation in Photoshop before further bumping up the detail in Topaz Adjust.

Software: Photoshop, Topaz Adjust

View of rocky reef ocean coast with golden sun setting on the horizon at the bottom of Crawl Hill in Bermuda.

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