Capturing Light

Colorful leaves. Air is clear and nippy.

I’ve been content to snap pictures with our very reliable little point ’n shoot Fuji Finepix camera for a few years now. It made more than adequate pictures most of the time and in most standard situations. But I’ve been longing for the digital SLR experience for quite some time now. I loved taking pictures with our Canon EOS 500. Choosing lenses according to the situation. Trying out different options to get the best picture possible. The only drawback: it was analog. And after getting used to the immediacy of digital photography the lag between taking a pic and seeing how it had turned out wasn’t acceptable any longer. So the EOS 500 started to gather dust in a corner along with some fairly decent lenses. It was a shame, really. Two weeks ago I did some research and decided I would go and try buying an old digital Canon EOS semi-professional model and see how I liked that. An old EOS 20D goes for quite reasonable prices these days. Sure, it’s not state of the art but what the heck. Our lenses were compatible and I was pretty sure it would be a sturdy piece of technology.

Canon EOS 20D

Over the course of only one short week I’ve taken more than 300 pictures already. I’ve been reading the manual, trying out settings, making adjustments and having general fun with this stone-age digital SLR. It’s not entirely without fault. But going by discussion boards on the net things like occasional error messages and acting up CF cards seem to be troubling owners of new and old Canon models alike. So I’ll enjoy it as long as it lasts. And it is indeed tremendous fun to get back on topic with photography, the theory behind it, the technology.

Manual White Balance captures these Wollmeise colors almost exactly right.

Parc fermé at an Autocross event at Motorsport Arena Oschersleben

It’s so easy to get interesting portraits and to play with focus and depth of field.

And puddle jumping is fun for 3-year olds.

Puddles

Gorgeous autumn weather.