Harry's Blog

I snapped these few shots this evening - I've not had chance to get out and about with the lens yet. All shots were taken on a Canon EOS 50D and developed using Canon's DPP software set to the Faithful picture style. The only post processing has been to resize the images and then add a little unsharp mask.

Photos appear after the jump...

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I picked up the Tamron 10-24mm wide angle lens today to replace the Sigma 10-20mm I stupidly sold some months ago.

I decided to go for the Tamron due to the extra 4mm at the long end which means for me that'll get more use on the camera than if it was merely very wide angle only.

My first impressions of the lens are strong, it seems well built and is quick to focus. As I suspected the 24mm is very usuable indeed for more general photography - it's the equivelent of 38mm on my Canon EOS 50D.

Meanwhile at 10mm it's very wide indeed and vignetting and chromatic abberation are well controlled. I do see a little of the latter but it's easily fixed with Canon's Digital Photo Professional or DXO Optics Pro.

So far so good. I'll have a more detailed review once I put the lens through its paces pointing at some more interesting views than our back garden.

I had a chance to pop over to Westbay this evening to catch the sunset. I took something like 100 shots in the brief time I was there and I think these were the best.

All shots were taken with a Canon EOS 50D DSLR camera and Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 lens.

I never used Auto ISO on my 40D, it wasn't very well implemented. The camera would tend to stick between very conservative settings and only used a small range of the available ISO settings anyway.

However I have used Auto ISO on my Canon EOS 50D in the last week and am really pleased with it. My camera gets two uses - 1, as a creative tool, 2, as a way of snapping the usual family pictures one does when out and about.

The second mode, armed with a Sigma 18-200mm DC OS, the Auto ISO has been really useful. We took the kids to Westbay harbour (in Dorset) and there were plenty of changes of subject and lighting that made the Auto ISO rather useful - especially with a slow-ish lens which has big changes of widest aperture.

What impressed me most was that the 50D tried to keep the ISO as low as possible rather than just pumping it up to 800 or 1600 and leaving it there. Taking some pictures of the children playing outside as the sun set had the camera trying ISO 100 when possible and only one 1600 shot. And as most 50D users have actually discovered, in good light ISO 1600 pictures look fantastic.

So yes, colour me impressed. I've definitely had a change of heart where Auto ISO is concerned. And while not a feature I'd use when composing more creative shots - when in "walkaround" mode it works very well indeed.

I popped into the Kingston branch of Jessops yesterday and saw that the Canon 50D Body Only was listed for £950.

That's £130 more than I paid for mine a month or so ago.

I understand the gap between the Yen and Pound is resulting in prices of bodies and lenses go up over here but at these prices who on earth is going to buy?

Canon EOS 50D Canon's latest 1.6x prosumer crop camera certainly has been controversial, partly due to early reviews which used Adobe Camera RAW to develop the files. That version of ACR gave a poor impression of the 50D's RAW files when in fact the camera is much more capable as users of better RAW software such as Digital Photo Professional and DXO Optics Pro have discovered. I'll be writing a full review of the camera over the next week or so. Lenses

Sigma AF18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DC Optical Stabilizer This Sigma lens is a good walk-around piece of glass for when you may be on vacation or not able to carry much equipment around with you. It's certainly not the best lens for optical quality, but what it lacks in quality at times it makes up in versatility. The optical stabilisation works brilliantly to help you get hand-held shots in low light and at long focal lengths. If you're making the step up from a basic kit lens and want just one good all-round lens this is a good place to start.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Known by many photographers as the "nifty fifty" this is one lens every Canon SLR owner should have in their kit bag. The cheap and cheerful plastic-cased lens is very fast - making it ideal for low light - and the f1.8 aperture also makes for great creative use of depth of field. You really can't go wrong with this lens as it packs more punch that its price would have you believe.

Sigma 105mm f2.8 EX DG Macro The Sigma 105mm is an excellent Macro camera offering a 1:1 magnification ratio, but it's also a great fast indoor portrait lens. The f2.8 aperture means you can get great shots in lower light without using a flash and the reach of 105mm on a crop camera such as a 400D or 50D means you can grab candid shots from across a room. The focus limit switch can be a pain until you get used to it, as is the push-pull focus ring, but the results of the great optics more than make up from a few usability issues.

Tamron AF 17-50mm F2.8 XR Di II LD Aspherical (IF) The Tamron 17-50mm is a real unsung hero of a lens. The optical quality is on a par with many lenses that cost twice as much and the fast f2.8 aperture makes it very useful indoors without a flash as well as out and about. 17mm is pretty wide even on a crop camera and this makes the lens and ideal walk-around when snapping landscape images. Flash Canon EOS Speedlite 430EX flash unit Accessories Canon BG-E2N Battery Grip For EOS 20D, 30D, 40D & 50D