Monday afternoon was surprisingly bright and fairly cloudless, so in the middle of the afternoon I made yet another trip out to try to more fully understand how to get the best out of the EOS R Canon’s full frame mirrorless body; I have sat down reading the online manual, on the iPad, as well as tried watching various videos from those who have been able to spend time with Canon and get to grips with the different way of working with this camera. The most notable outcome so far with the hours I have spent experimenting happened this evening when I went back to my ‘conventional’ DSLR, the EOS 7D MkII, and to my surprise I was actually befuddled by it! This was because of the time spent with the new beast – I actually started laughing at myself!
I decided to cycle round to the Forest Centre with the camera and a couple of lenses and the latest Sigma 1.4x Converter, and see what I could find to test my increasing understanding of how to get the best from it in relation to how I wanted to work. The biggest issue I have found thus far is how to be able to see all the necessary settings simply and speedily. Each time I set myself a task, I find at least one setting that eludes me.
I need to quickly set a specific aperture, preferably with variable auto ISO within a certain range. I also need to know how many frames I have left, and how much battery charge is available, and when actually shooting I need to be able to make exposure compensation due to either lighting conditions or subject brightness. I do not want to have to delve into several different menus to achieve all this, and so far such speedy alterations have eluded me. I do know that the one component that I have on order will make this far simpler as it is a ring that can be preset to allow me to make some of these adjustments with a simple turn of the ring, but there is no stock of the ring in the country presently!
In order to fund the purchase of this body I have parted with my favourite long lens the 150-600mm Sigma Sports lens, in order to buy the longer-ranged 60-600mm, but that is also not in the country, hence why I am ‘out in the country’ with my 100-400mm Canon lens with the Sigma 1.4x Converter in its place, so the single-paged gallery that accompanies this narrative shows what I did manage with a bit of difficulty – to capture gulls flying at some distance with this combo handheld – to this end you will see some examples where I show the generally full image, and then a crop that shows what detail is present. By way of example frame 10 shows the full image and frame 11 shows a tight crop of the gull; same goes for 13 & 14. (Same also applies for 8 & 9, 16 & 17 and 20 & 21). Using my 5D MkIII and the same lens and Converter renders a far smaller image, so this increase in megabyte size, coupled with no vibration due to the mirror operating, means a far crisper end result. However, actually panning a moving subject is not as easy, hence why in frame 13, the gull is way off centre, yet sharp.
I feel a complete novice, and do not yet have the same level of confidence in my ability to deliver the results I would be happy presenting, and by the time this piece is available on the blog, I have an evening where I am hoping I can shoot a gathering at a networking event to the level I have in the past. It will definitely not be as smooth as I would like, but I am hoping that if all goes well, there should be a measurable jump in the quality I can achieve, as the level of shutter speed should be of a higher order. Normally I might find myself shooting at as low as 1/13th of a second, and this time I am hoping to never go lower than 1/60th. Time will tell.
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