My First Serious Gallery of EOS R Images

         I went up to London on the opening Trade Day of the latest SWPP Photography Show in the Novotel Hotel in London’s Hammersmith and met up with an erstwhile colleague from my days as a photographer for the same proprietor, but whereas I moved on away from being a Photographer and into selling, after a few years he actually bought the company. I went from taking pictures to being a Salesman for a Colour Laboratory where, by the end of the first year became their Sales Manager, for which one of the perks was films and processing. When that company looked like it was going to close, I jumped ship and set up ‘SOLUTIONS photographic’ selling Retouching and other photographic services in the main for that company’s Retouchers who had also broken away and became independent.

          Back to the narrative – my reason for attending the show was to glean further information on the Canon full-frame mirrorless camera; meeting up with Steve Scrase meant that not only was I asking questions of various companies in relation to the camera, but Steve was discussing some of the points I was raising with regarding what I considered failings in this first full-frame Mirrorless Canon body. I had come to the Show really to convince myself that this offering was NOT yet ready for me to contemplate, but the more the various sales people and Steve and I discussed it the more assurance I was offered that it was worth considering. Having also sorted two lenses and an earlier camera body out, ready for a possible sale to help finance a potential purchase, I was beginning to weaken, and the Want Glands were beginning to secrete their potent juices into my system – the figures offered potentially for my kit made the drain on finances lessen…

          To cut out any further reminiscences I bit the bullet and made the purchase, and agreed that I would return the following day with my earlier gear and in the fullness of time will receive somewhere close to the estimated values to offset the cost. The handover was made to the young salesman outside the hotel on the Friday, and although I did some playing around to familiarise myself with the very different handling, it was not till the Sunday with a heavy frost and reasonably bright sunshine that I got to grips with the unfamiliar operation of this body and a couple of my lenses to take a wander through the nearby Marston Forest Centre woods.

          This was not a project that was going to bring back numerous masterpieces of photographic art, this was purely to capture the essence of the park and give me some idea as to how to handle this body with understanding and learn how to get the most from it. I certainly suffered quite a lot of frustration in trying to get it to work as I wanted, but this was not a criticism of the camera, but simply my failing to operate it with familiarity. I knew what I wanted it to do, but found it difficult to work out how to achieve it simply and speedily. I learned one very valuable lesson – I would need more charged batteries due to leaving it on in readiness! I spent more time in manual focus because of the screen blacking out when trying to move the AF point around the screen.

          However, despite the fading battery power limiting my trip (only a walk away from home!) I found myself slowly understanding how to control the beast, and certainly the technical quality of its 60-70MB files was impressive, the gallery of images does not really show the quality that can be achieved, but I noted the potential, I do wonder how I might fare with the Sigma 60-600mm Sports lens when that arrives?