Taking the Canon 5D Mark II for a spin...

I picked up my new Canon 5D Mark II last week, just in time to take it for a test spin at Second Saturday in downtown Sacramento. (Just a reminder of the specs: 21.1 megapixel, full HD video, ISOs to 25600!)

I popped on my 50mm f1.4 lens and headed off to see a friend's art show. (She does beautiful chiaroscuro style oil paintings. See them at http://www.catherinecrable.com/)

(this one shot at 6400 ISO.)

One of the first features I was dying to try was the HD video. Shooting video on the 5D was not very intuitive, so I had to pull out the manual. But it's pretty awesome! First you enable Live View, which is accessed through one dedicated button, a vast improvement from my 40D. And you can use any lens when shooting video, but you do need to focus manually. I found that a bit tricky to do the first time with the lens opened all the way to f1.4. But I'll keep practicing.

I must say, figuring out how to convert and edit the footage isn't very clear. I ended up Googling it and downloaded a free program from squared5.com. Then edited and combined the clips in Windows Moviemaker. But I'm sure there's a better way.

Check out this bit of footage along I Street:

And some stills:

And in Barton's Gallery, the ballet dancers mirrored the sculpture in the window:

In all, using the new 5D Mark II is familar and the learning curve isn't too extreme. I'll just look forward to learning how to shoot and edit video to augment my still photography. I just love the flexibility of super-high ISOs. The body has the same weight and dimensions as the previous 5D, making it a very comfortable fit in my camera bag.

Look for some comparison test shots soon.

My first photo lesson: The rule of thirds

If you’re looking to improve your photos, one of the first places to start is with your composition.
Let’s say you have your eye on a beautiful sunset. Many people would simply point the camera toward the west and click, the top of the frame filled with sky and the bottom half with land or sea.

But you can do better than that. If brilliant pink clouds are what caught your attention, make the most of them by placing the horizon line low in the frame.

On the other hand, if the landscape is more compelling, make it fill the lower two-thirds of the frame, leaving just a sliver of sky.

Basically, to get a pleasing balance to your image, the horizon should be placed either high or low in the frame.

Your eye has a natural tendency to scan a photo, searching for the most interesting parts of an image to rest upon or leave the frame. So your objective is a more interesting, asymmetrical division of your frame. It’s called the Rule of Thirds. Here’s a good discussion of how it works from Richard Burke at eHow.

If your subject dictates a vertical (or portrait) orientation, the same rules apply. Imagine a tic-tac-toe grid across the frame. Place the most interesting elements of your image along those lines. Take several shots, paying no attention to the rules, and then placing the subject about one-third of the way into the frame at each corner (along the intersections of your tic-tac-toe grid). See which ones draw your eye toward a pleasing resting place. You’ll know what I mean if you visit Richard Burke’s link above.

Generally speaking, the way you frame a photo either draws your eye toward the most interesting elements, or leads your eye away and out of the frame with no area of special focus.
You could spend decades studying the fine points of composition, but the Rule of Thirds is a foundational principle that will help you improve the next photos you take.

The camera gives you cover

Normally, I hesitate to insert myself in the middle of a situation for fear of intruding. But with a camera in hand, I feel like I have a cloak of invisibility and can go places I never usually would.

For example, I have a slight fear of heights. But if the shot I want requires climbing onto a precipice and dangling over the edge, I’m there. It’s as if my camera has special powers to protect me. Actually, it's just that I don’t notice my fear because I’m intent on getting the shot.

I recently found myself in Paris during Fashion Week. Inspired by the event, my daughter and a friend who were traveling with us got all dolled up and headed for the Ponte Alexander for a photoshoot. We had costume changes and everything. Now, normally I would have been intimidated by shooting there, among the crowd, since all I had with me was my little Canon G9 travel camera. Who was I to pretend to be a fashion photographer with that little gadget?


Amazingly enough, once my model was in place, thirst for the shot took over and I had nary a nerve the whole time. Passersby even stopped to watch and shoot a few frames themselves!

Sure, I would have loved to have my studio camera and the shots could have been better, but the shoot was great fun. I think that’s what’s most important -- recognizing a rare opportunity and seizing it. And if any of those passersby were giggling at me behind my back, I’ll never know!

Am I a writer or a photographer?

I’m actually a writer by trade, but it’s fascinating to me how photography and writing have taken alternate first place in my life since childhood.


My earliest writing was in about seventh grade, when I’d spend my afternoons in my bedroom with a manual typewriter, dreaming up the perfect horse story. I’ll never forget how my father teased me about a line in “The Shadow,” a story about a wild horse that the protagonist comes across in her after-school walks. Evidently, Shadow lived in a cave in the rocky hills, which I described as “your basic cave, with four walls and an entrance.” After that, everything was your “basic” this, your “basic” that. So much for a great literary career.


Although I did recover enough to major in journalism and eventually write a travel memoir titled “Aegean Escape.” That tome was inspired by a yacht trip my father and I took right after Sept. 11, 2001, and is probably the most heartfelt work I’ve done. Usually, my strength is non-fiction and education-related articles.


Meanwhile, as a teenager I was discovering the joy of photography. With tutelage from a friend, I learned about composition and exposure using a manual Minolta SLR. I set up a darkroom at home and developed my own film long before taking a formal class in college. I just loved the way the image would pop out in the developer. It’s magic, really.

Here's an early photo of my husband, Fred, developed and printed in my bathroom darkroom. (Pretty hot, huh?)





But I'll have to admit it was much easier to use the darkroom at Cosumnes River College. It’s a fabulous place, rather like a jazz lounge. You can get lost in there, listening to the music, talking to classmates and making magic happen under the enlarger. It’s one of the things I miss most about switching to digital.


But switch I did, and it’s great, really. I can snap as many frames as my camera will process (which I regularly exceed). I have the most fun during fashion shoots with my daughter, Mindi. We started shooting fashion together when she was in cosmetology school and needed portfolio shots. After my first experiments, I quickly saw the need for real studio lighting, and I haven’t looked back since. Now, it’s just a matter of what new equipment I’ll upgrade to next.

So, naturally, as soon as I can lay hands on one, I’ll be mastering the new Canon 5D Mark II. Besides capturing whopping TWENTY-ONE mega pixel images, this beauty has full HD video. From what I’ve been reading, incorporating video into presentations and slideshows is the next hot trend for photographers. I can hardly wait!

So, for now my personal writing projects are taking a back seat to photography once again. And I couldn’t be happier.